Twilio Segment

Transforming an in-house creative function into a strategic powerhouse.

The Customer Data Platform (CDP) industry was experiencing explosive growth, with both Segment and its competitors vying for market leadership. While Marketing and Sales teams were highly driven to rapidly acquire new customers, the existing creative support model presented a challenge. This often led to trust-eroding discrepancies between market-facing campaigns and sales enablement materials.

The mandate: transform the creative function from a reactive service into a proactive, strategic partner to drive efficiency and elevate the brand. A core philosophy, akin to "measure twice, cut once," guided this transformation. Rather than prioritizing speed, a methodical approach was championed—pausing to truly understand the problem. This foresight consistently yielded integrated design solutions addressing multiple challenges beyond initial requests.

The acquisition presented a unique, complex positioning challenge as well. Segment possessed significant brand recognition, but now, as a product within the larger Twilio ecosystem, it faced pressure to adopt Twilio's visual language. The strategic vision was to harmonize these two powerful brands, clarifying that while Segment would ultimately integrate with Twilio's broader suite for enhanced customer utility, its distinct identity needed careful stewardship during the transition.

As the brand lead, this complex integration was spearheaded, which involved managing 8 designers across staff and 3 agencies. Among the deliverables were well-documented guidance for internal teams and comprehensive design templates. A key strategic decision was to establish a clear hierarchy: when Twilio was marketing to Segment customers, Twilio served as the "context," and Segment as the "content," and vice-versa. This ensured a cohesive yet distinct brand presence across all touchpoints, preserving Segment's established trust while signaling its enhanced capabilities through the Twilio integration.

Beyond brand architecture, a comprehensive overhaul of creative operations was spearheaded. This included implementing a service-oriented model with tiered Creative SLAs, developing robust brief templates, and operationalizing self-serve creative tools. This role involved leading executive leadership workshops that emboldened the above strategy, and overseeing art direction for 15 marketing campaigns and 3 web pages per week.

These strategic and operational refinements led to a 466% increase in the design function's efficiency, enabling the delivery of web page designs in just two days, down from seven, for example. This not only dramatically accelerated go-to-market efforts but also fostered significant brand trust through consistently recognizable and high-quality designs, directly supporting pipeline generation and market differentiation during a critical period of integration and growth. This pivotal work positioned Segment for continued success within the broader Twilio ecosystem.

Jul. 2021 – Nov. 2023

Brand architecture
Brand platforms
Art direction
Creative direction
Campaign development
Social media systems
Brand standards
Illustration/Iconography
Style guidelines
UI/UX Visual mapping
Visual identity systems
Book/Brochure/Magazine
Digital products
Environments
Exhibitions
Website
Nathan Sharp
Kelly Kuhl
Keenan Brand
Nate Trueblood