After years of growth within their partner program, Shopify re-evaluated and rebuilt the program to offer partners more structured incentives and rewards. To assist the rollout of the new program, Shopify wanted a new brand that worked in conjunction with the core Shopify brand, but spoke to the values of their partners.
The new partners program aimed to make the program more appealing to designers, marketers, affiliates and developers.
Partners were previously met with a lot of documentation typically geared toward developers, this made the program seem overwhelming and very technical. The new program redefined what it meant to be a partner, making the onboarding process much easier with direct communication and help from Shopify partner managers.
Aiming to position Shopify as the accelerator helping partners achieve financial freedom, the new brand focused on real partners and highlighted them as the hero’s helping merchants build successful businesses.
The corporate identity system for the brand focused on four main graphic devices: partner photos, the spotlight, the ripple and the ecosystem grid. All working in conjunction to tell the story of how a partner (using their actual photos) leveraged the Shopify platform (referred to as the stage) to become a merchants hero (the spotlight shining on and highlighting the partner) while having reach (the ripple) and impact on the entire partners program (the ecosystem grid) by teaching other partners how to be successful.
The new brand was rolled out prior to Shopify’s annual “Unite” conference. A conference dedicated to explaining to partners and the public what Shopify was working on and what to expect in the upcoming roadmap.
The rollout of the new brand was successful with signups reaching new highs. With only weeks to the new conference, leadership requested a video be produced explaining the partner program in its new look and feel. Working with internal and external teams a storyboard was created and conceptualized that focused on real testimonials from actual successful Shopify partners from around the world. With the video produced in time, it premiered on the main stage of the opening day and continues to live on, helping promote the partners program and drive new signups.
Additional Work
