Brand
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Web Design
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Design Systems
Smith Commerce
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5
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/ About the project
Smith Commerce rebranded to position itself beyond commerce integrations, evolving into a performance-driven agency. The new identity shifted messaging from commerce-specific services to a broader focus on helping clients optimize engagement, conversion, and growth. This strategic shift allowed Smith to expand into marketing and future service offerings while maintaining its commerce expertise.
A growth campaign was launched to communicate the transition, emphasizing Smith’s evolution to better serve clients. The website and a video campaign highlighted the expansion, reinforcing Smith’s new positioning.
/ From integrators to architects
For many years Smith Commerce saw success as an SAP Commerce Cloud integrator, building complex B2B eCommerce environments for clients. In 2020 they rebranded themselves as a performance commerce company, with the tagline "Commerce Reimagined. Performance Realized". The terminology was new in the marketplace, but was akin to the idea of performance marketing. The rebrand was helpful, but left Smith in a position that if they chose to grow or expand their servicing offerings beyond commerce specific integrations and builds, it would be difficult to gain market share for those new offerings as their name, tagline and messaging all promoted them as a commerce company.
In 2021 Smith acquired a marketing agency whose services expanded the scope of the commerce industry. After initial research, the consensus from clients was that they saw Smith as a commerce only company and likely wouldn’t engage them for other services as that was not their understanding of the company’s service offerings. Smith was now in the situation of redeveloping their brand so they could support their new offerings and set the stage for any future expansion and growth.
/ Performance realized
Smith’s tagline was “Commerce reimagined, performance realized.” Directly tying their brand to the commerce industry. The new structure of the new brand involved moving everything a step up and creating an overarching umbrella around the idea of performance. This meant all high level brand messaging would focus less around the service of commerce and more around the idea of how Smith could take you from where you were, to where you wanted to be. Improving your platform's engagement, draw and conversion. As a potential client learned more about Smith and moved down the engagement funnel, the messaging would then become more direct, speaking to the current services of performance commerce and marketing.
This new umbrella allowed for both major services (commerce and marketing) to continue to live on comfortably while allowing for scale to expand and introduce new services later.
/ Optimizing ROI through growth
Through the years as Smith Commerce grew their look and feel changed regularly. It wasn’t until 2020’s original rebrand that Smith had a consistent corporate identity system that was expressed through all channels. Explaining to current and potential clients why the company was changing again was crucial to avoid any speculation and bring forth any potentially accrued brand equity.
To manage this, a growth campaign was developed. All outward facing communications spoke to the idea of growth being a catalyst for success and that Smith was going through its own growth to benefit its clients. Part of this campaign included taking over the main homepage hero on the Smith website for the first 6 months to include this messaging. The growth video spoke to the acquisition of the marketing company and the new services being offered.
After the first six months, the growth campaign would then be repurposed by HR for employee recruitment, under the idea of “we’re growing”.
/ Performance as a line of business
As the industry shifted away from monolith commerce solutions to a more open headless system, Smith began work on proprietary products such as accelerators to get clients up and running quickly and more efficiently.
The purpose of these products aligned perfectly to the idea of performance and created an entire line of business beyond the original service offering of performance commerce and marketing, further securing Smith’s market share as the performance company focused on realizing their clients potential.
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