frog helps realize Jawwy from STC, a reimagined mobile experience from Saudi Telecommunications Company

Brand creation and UI/UX design work receive top honors with five Transform Awards MENA, including the Grand Prix

DUBAI—Jawwy from STC, a new digital-first mobile experience offering for Saudi millennials from Saudi Telecommunications Company, designed and developed in collaboration with Lippincott and frog, two leading global design consultancies, was recognized last night at the 2016 Transform Awards MENA, the region’s only program awarding the best brand work in the Middle East and North Africa.

Jawwy from STC and Lippincott won Gold for ‘Best strategic/creative development of a new brand,’ Gold for ‘Best naming strategy’ and Gold for ‘Best visual identity’. Jawwy from STC and frog won Gold for ‘Best digital brand experience’ and Jawwy from STC won Silver for ‘Best verbal identity/tone of voice,’ developed by the in-house brand team. As a consequence of these wins, Jawwy from STC was also awarded the Grand Prix.

Saudi Arabia has one of the world’s highest penetration rates of smartphones, social media and online platforms, and Saudis under the age of 30 comprise around 65 percent of the population. This has led STC Group to adopt new approaches, including the launch of Jawwy from STC, to better meet the evolving needs of young, digitally savvy customers.

“When ethnographic research indicated that mobile service and usage offerings were unable to meet the evolving needs and expectations of this important digitally-savvy segment of the population, we recognized an opportunity,” said Ash Banerjee, Chief Brand Officer of Jawwy from STC. “To capitalize on this opportunity, we needed to create a breakthrough brand and digital experience. We partnered with Lippincott and frog to define the brand strategy, identity and experience principles and realize a great digital end-user experience to fulfill the unmet needs of Saudi millennials, while testing our work with our audience at every step of the development process.

“Jawwy from STC is the first “negotiated brand” in the MENA region, co-created with its audience, and our wins last night demonstrate that research and insight, strategic rigor and inspired design are all essential ingredients for brand creation and implementation. I’m thrilled that the work we’ve done to bring Jawwy from STC to life has been recognized for excellence at the 2016 Transform MENA Awards. A successful brand has a lot of people behind it and our colleagues and business partners should be very proud of our achievements,” he said.

The experience-driven brand strategy, name and identity were developed by Lippincott to stand out within the crowded telecommunications category in KSA. The name ‘Jawwy,’ colloquial for “my atmosphere” among Saudi youth, is expressed as a contemporary wordmark in which the two Arabic letterforms are stacked vertically.

Lippincott built the visual system around the anatomy of the symbol and its simple geometric letterforms. An orange tone, when tested amongst consumers, was found to resonate with the brand strategy and personality: natural, bright, optimistic, vibrant and warm. The color choice also helped further differentiate the brand in the category and at large. Lippincott developed the brand strategy, name, logo, identity system, experience principles, the internal brand engagement and culture programme and employee experience map for Jawwy.

“Our digital-first brand strategy provided a foundation that all creative partners could build from. We worked with Jawwy and frog, iterating and consumer testing at every stage to ensure the brand experience extended seamlessly across all consumer touch points”, said Ian Wood, Senior Partner at Lippincott. “The design had to offer more than simplicity and practicality, it had to become a manifestation of the brand vision and forge a deep emotional connection with customers”.

The visual elements of the brand were developed and tested in parallel to the experience design by frog. A team of 32 frog designers, technologists, strategists and quality engineers spent seven weeks during design discovery and concept ideation, effectively reframing “pain points” identified in ethnographic research as “gain points” – opportunities to improve the user experience. frog structured these opportunities into a customer journey through specific stages: brand awareness, discovery, purchase, experience, maintain, and socialize.

“frog brought the Jawwy brand to life digitally,” said Layla Keramat, Executive Creative Director at frog. “In just four months, frog’s interdisciplinary team defined and realized an authentic and compelling human centered experience across the customer journey.”

frog developed the software for the responsive website minimal viable product (MVP), deployment of Marketing Portal infrastructure, user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) guidelines for the web portal and application and other touch points, and the skinning of the native (iOS and Android) mobile applications from cloud-based telecommunications solution company, ItsOn.

To finally orchestrate the complete technical implementation and a seamless user experience across each touch point, frog worked side-by-side with fourteen partners from Silicon Valley to the Middle-East and India, adapting its development approach to partner software life cycles and specific technology standards.

Jawwy from STC, frog and Lippincott have realized a responsive and seamless user journey across desktop, tablets and mobile devices to showcase the new brand, plans and services, a product catalog, e-shop, support and community, as well as native iOS and Android self-care apps, in both Arabic and English.