Verizon Unveils Brand Overhaul: CMO Leslie Berland Explains Strategy (2024)

Cannes, France—The data will set you free.

When Verizon announced that Leslie Berland was joining as CMO in December of 2023, CEO Hans Vestberg called the moment a “transformative time” for the industry. At the time, Berland didn’t know yet what that would mean for Verizon’s brand, but quickly the data showed Verizon needed a new look, feel and positioning in the market.

In Verizon’s design system, the black overshadowed its iconic red. Verizon has 99% brand awareness, but only 30% of people can identify the Verizon check mark. The brand views itself as powering how you live, but consumers view it as invisible.

With that in mind, Berland and Ricardo Aspiazu, vp of creative and brand management at Verizon, worked with agency partners to develop a new design system and brand platform that embodied its name—Verizon’s name is a combination of Veritas and horizon—and provided a window into everything the brand has to offer. Berland and Aspiazu also saw an opportunity to put the “V” front and center of everything it does. To tie everything together, Verizon’s iconic “Can you hear me now?” tagline is also making a brief return.

“We’re bringing freshness and vibrancy in our storytelling to lead with people’s lives, and then connect to what we do versus leading with the technology or promotion,” Berland told ADWEEK. “It’s flipping not just how we look at the design of the systems, but really how we do marketing and advertising overall.”

A gold flash

Berland sees an opportunity to elevate the “V” of Verizon by giving it a different look and feel throughout its marketing. It starts with a golden accent on the left side of the V which is meant to be reminiscent of the horizon. It will focus on spotlighting the wordmark initially to establish it with consumers before beginning to roll out other uses of its V logo, which will initially only show up as the app icon.

But Berland eventually has big plans for that V and the left side will also be used as a portal into Verizon’s connection to the NFL, Netflix, Apple Music and gaming. However, Verizon will ease into diversifying how the V shows up though to avoid confusing customers.

Verizon is also redesigning the gear workers will wear in hopes of making their sales associates more approachable. Aspiazu even hopes employees will wear their uniforms out to the bar without changing post-work “because it’s a cool t-shirt.”

The brand tapped Publicis design agency Turner Duckworth for the new brand system.

A new anthem

Verizon is bringing back a variation of one of its most iconic campaigns, “Can you hear me now?”

“We thought for this moment in time to reclaim, ‘Can you hear me now?’ and to modernize it in terms of what we do in your life today,” Berland said, adding the spot brings to life all the ways Verizon quietly fuels your life, work and more.

The 90-second spot will run for a short period, and the new iteration of “Can you hear me now” will likely only be used “in this one brand moment” as Berland put it.

Verizon is also releasing two other spots aimed at illustrating how consumers should view trading in broken phones as second nature, and the spots show a subtle shift in how Verizon frames its messaging.

“In other iterations that have been done in the past, we lead with explaining what we’re talking about, versus connecting them with that human experience that we’ve all had,” Berland said.

Verizon is making other creative shifts as well using strong language and facial expressions to tell the story. “There’s also a very intentional connection with music to make it feel current and not like stock music we pulled out of somewhere. It’s trying to connect and uncover upcoming artists and musicians,” Aspiazu said, adding the brand plans to involve more creators to make the brand more human.

To launch the new look and platform, Verizon used a variety of agencies, including The Community, Momentum and Ogilvy New York, which brought Verizon’s vision to life for reviving “Can you hear me now?”

Making OOH bold

Given that Verizon already has 99% brand awareness with consumers, the company wants to use its out-of-home work to begin driving conversions. To do that, “we need to make sure that we resonate with you through the human truth of insights and how you behave with your phone and with your network,” Aspiazu said, adding, “We had to crack the formula of bringing awareness and desire that eventually or very quickly will turn into acquisition.”

In the OOH work, the brand shows consumers dealing with a broken phone both from the perspective of the consumer and the phone.

“We’re taking this idea of the broken phone and finding another way to demystify the stigma about if my phone is broken, it is worthless,” Aspiazu said. “We came up with this ‘Broken is beautiful. Trade in any phone, any condition, anytime.'”

Despite the yellow and lack of red in the OOH campaign, Berland confirmed red will be the primary color, which Verizon will lean into more than in the past.

“What ended up happening is the black was actually the most dominant and the red almost took a backseat for things,” Berland said, adding “For OOH specifically, we want to push and grab. We’re big believers of out-of-home needs to make you stop on the street.”