Inside a Rebrand: How Twilio Got Its Swagger Back with CMO Chris Koehler and VP of Brand Adam Morgan

0:00:06.6 Kailey Raymond: Welcome to Builders Wanted, the podcast for those boldly building what's next in customer engagement. Today's episode is a special one, not just because we're kicking off a new season, but because we're also introducing a new chapter for Twilio. You may have noticed things look, sound and feel a little bit different. That's because Twilio recently launched a refreshed brand, one that's bigger than just a new logo or a fresh coat of paint. It's a signal to the market and to ourselves about who we're here for, the builders. 

0:00:37.0 Kailey Raymond: So what does that actually mean? Why now? And what does it take to pull off a brand evolution inside a company like Twilio? To help unpack all of that, I'm joined by two of the people who led this transformation. Chris Koehler, Twilio's Chief Marketing Officer, and Adam Morgan, our VP of Brand and Creative. Together, they've partnered to define the strategy, vision and creative expression behind Twilio's new identity. And today, they're pulling back the curtain to share how it all came to life.

0:01:09.3 Producer: This podcast is brought to you by Twilio, the customer engagement platform that helps businesses turn real time data into seamless, personalized experiences, engage customers on their terms across SMS, voice, email, WhatsApp and more. Power every interaction with AI so conversations feel natural, not robotic. Adapt in real time, delivering the right message on the right channel exactly when it matters. That's the power of Twilio. More than 320,000 businesses, from startups to Fortune 500s trust Twilio to transform customer signals into conversations, connections and real revenue. Reimagine the way you engage with your customers. Learn more at Twilio.com.

0:01:58.0 Kailey Raymond: Chris and Adam, welcome to the show. I'm excited to have you here.

0:02:02.1 Adam Morgan: Yeah, thanks for having us.

0:02:03.6 Chris Koehler: Yeah, thanks for having us.

0:02:05.0 Kailey Raymond: Should be fun. A fun fact, before we settle in here, Chris, you're the very first repeat guest we have on this very podcast. Chris previously joined us when he was the CMO of Box, and so now I'm very excited to have him back, kicking off season four as leader of Twilio's marketing team. And Adam, brand new to the show, but old hat at podcasts. You joined Twilio in September to lead our brand and creative function and you've been working tirelessly ever since then to bring this new brand to life. Adam, I'm going to start with you. I buried the lead a little bit, but Twilio just launched a refresh brand, new look, new feel, new tone, new direction. For the listeners that haven't seen it yet, what's changed and more importantly, why? 

0:02:48.1 Adam Morgan: Well, certainly what's changed is everything, if you really sum it up. I mean, from the top to bottom, we're talking colors and font choices and all the design elements and storytelling and all of those things. But I like that you asked about the why, because that's the most important part. We didn't just go after this rebrand because we have a new CMO or a new VP of brand. There really were some needed elements that were happening that caused us to run to do a brand refresh. Some of that includes bringing all of our brands underneath one house under the Twilio brand. But also, more importantly, was the why. 

0:03:21.0 Adam Morgan: I think a lot of rebrands out there, and if you look across the interwebs, you'll see people complaining about everything from the Jaguar rebrand to the Walmart rebrand. And what people don't realize is what goes on behind the scenes. I've lived it. I understand it. I know exactly what is happening with all those situations. And for us, the need was to understand why we existed, why we were there. I think we had a perfectly beautiful brand look and feel, but we were missing out on, like, what does the audience care about deeply? And then what are we offering and what are we promising to them. And landing on that was the big part of the rebrand.

0:03:58.1 Adam Morgan: And spoiler alert, the story is all about this builder idea. And I know we're going to get into it more in the rest of this podcast, but it was really finding that core why as to what this idea that anyone can be a builder and that all of our audiences are builders and that we're here to be a brand for builders.

0:04:18.4 Kailey Raymond: I love it. That's really interesting because it feels like it's an evolution from Twilio's roots, right? Like developer roots. And if I can say, it's certainly something that we're adding swagger and personality back into B2B, which I'm personally really excited about. I feel often B2B leans a little bit too heavily into the jargon and away from the personality. So I'm excited about it. Chris, you've been in seat as Twilio CMO for just under a year. Rebranding, I mean, Adam's kind of said this. It's obviously not a flippant decision. I'm wondering if there's any inflection points for you as a CMO that might trigger when or when not to undertake a rebrand.

0:04:57.4 Chris Koehler: I think it's natural when you move into a new role, right? You want to put your stamp on something. And I think you're fighting against your desire to do something new and fresh as part of that. And I think the approach that I took was, hey, let's take a step back. Let's not do something very, very quick. We had a strong brand and look and feel, but as we obviously brought Adam on board and we took a step back, we talked to employees, we talked to customers, we talked to investors. 

0:05:25.0 Chris Koehler: It was like, what do you think about us? Where are we strong? How do we really capture the essence is what Adam said of who we are. And I think you kind of know when you know, right? It's like, okay, so we've got this strong brand, but actually we could hone. We could refine it. We can go back to the roots. We had a lot of what was really interesting, a sort of, I'd say, quirky culture internally, we were geeky. We're proud of that. We're nerdy, right? And you mentioned it, brands sometimes get, as they grow and B2B, they get conservative. They get serious, right? And it's like, here's what our product does and here's what it solves. But having that personality, have that swagger, that's what stands out. 

0:06:05.4 Chris Koehler: And B2C companies do it all the time, but why don't B2B? Because I think sometimes we're scared as part of that. So that's, I think, a lot of the why behind it is we got tons of great feedback from employees and customers, and we wanted to have a little bit more fun and be able to put more personal to who we were, both as a company and as a brand.

0:06:27.5 Kailey Raymond: As a marketer, I am thrilled that we're going to be having more fun in our campaigns and our brand. It's also, I think the lesson up front that you mentioned, it's a good note to marketing leaders to not just take that knee jerk and immediately want to rebrand. Like, actually listen and learn and see if it's something that makes sense for you. Adam, you kind of mentioned this a little bit already, but the term builder, it's central to this new identity. I want you to define that a bit. How would you define builder? 

0:06:56.4 Adam Morgan: Builder is more of a mindset than really a job title. If you look at who we're serving as customers, we have a huge array of customers, starting from developers all the way up to line of business owners who may be building a team or an app all the way up to the C-suite of a CTO, a CIO, maybe even a CEO who's building a company. And when we started, we wanted to be very careful that we weren't just speaking to one audience and then kind of leaving others out. So when we landed on this builder story, it truly is a universal idea, meaning that we wanted to make sure that it's something that all of those audiences can believe in as well as we can deliver on it. 

0:07:34.8 Adam Morgan: So when we think about what is a builder, a builder is really anyone. It's anyone who's got a dream or a vision or a passion or excitement to go out and make something, right? Unlike a lot of other terms that people have used for audiences, it's not that we're philosophers or thinkers or we're renegades or rebels, we're doers, builders are the people who have an idea and actually go and do something about it. They go out and make it. 

0:07:59.8 Adam Morgan: And so that's such an important part of our story, because what are we as Twilio? We are a platform where you can build amazing customer experiences. And so that is the invitation to anyone, whether you're the C-suite, down to a developer, that you have this freedom to build whatever you want. And another thing that's important about this is that we're more DIY, right? It's not that you come into our ecosystem and you're locked in and you're done. No, we want this freedom to build anything you want to be real, where people feel like they have transferable skills, and then they can go and use any app or AI or anything that they want, and then use Twilio as this workbench and then build those digital experiences that make a true impact on daily life.

0:08:40.4 Kailey Raymond: I love that idea of Twilio as the workbench and this concept of builder in the most expansive sense of the term. It's how you approach things. It's you're unafraid to look under the hood and make sure you understand how it works and propose a solution. And when I first saw you present this, it immediately clicked to me. I started my career in startups, and the idea of building something, like every single day you see the new thing that your team is putting together, completely resonates with me as a marketer, and it's something that I try to bring into that identity every single day. 

0:09:15.0 Kailey Raymond: I did want to bring up something that a lot of our listeners might struggle with a bit, and something, frankly, that there's a balance here at Twilio as well. We sell many different products to many different personas, and this one's for both of you. How do you make sure that that single brand message, be a builder, lands across all of those audiences, from execs to developers to marketers and beyond? 

0:09:38.0 Chris Koehler: Yeah, and I think Adam, one of the directives as we were looking at this, and I think Adam and team absolutely nailed this, was something that could go up and down the stack, right? And I think there was a belief, hey, we need to get back to our roots. We need to get back to developers. And we said yes and not or. And I think sometimes you try to anchor on one Persona as part of that. And the reality is, can you basically create some positioning and branding and messaging that really resonates with everyone in the stack, but you have to be very deliberate around it. And I think that was really powerful in this notion of being a builder. And that's, Kailey, much like the first time Adam pitched it to me, I was like, wait, this is like, oh, my gosh, it's a movement. It's something. It actually speaks to me because I may not be building software, but I'm building... I'm trying to build a team and a culture and a company, right? I'm building a family, I'm build... I see myself as a builder, but I'm not hands on keyboard building applications. So that's, I think, the secret sauce of this is that it actually applies to everyone, and that takes some deliberate thought into as you build this and really understanding what your audience cares about.

0:10:54.8 Adam Morgan: And I may add, just as we mentioned earlier that Twilio is a workbench. That's how I see the brand coming together. There are a lot of tools and elements and parts and pieces that collectively make up the brand. Just as we have all of these different APIs and channels and AI and all the parts and pieces that builders can use to make experiences. And when we built this brand, no pun intended, it really was about making sure all of those disparate elements tied back to that why. Tied back to that builder story. For example, we may have these unique shapes that we use that are almost like little building blocks that nest within each other as like a bespoke brand element that instantly says builder. 

0:11:36.6 Adam Morgan: We may be using architectural lines and things that look like you're in drafting that also say builder. And they also tie back to tech culture. So all of these elements can scale because you've just got like your whole tool bench, right? Like, if you want to talk to a C-suite, we may use language that is a little more big picture, but it'll still tie back to that core human truth of what you feel of that freedom to build.

0:11:57.8 Adam Morgan: If we're talking to a developer, we may use other parts of that toolkit to add a little more, just bring it down a level and add a little bit of code or add a little bit of reference material that developers would understand and others wouldn't. But that's just the beauty of it. It all ties back to the why, but we have the breadth and depth in order to speak to all the different audiences in the way that they understand.

0:12:19.9 Chris Koehler: Well, and I think, Adam, as part of that and again, as we serve a wide range of Personas every from a developer and talk about sort of bare middle APIs, hands on keyboard building those applications themselves up to like the C-suite, where I'm not going to probably talk to the C-suite around, hey, we've got a set of open APIs that you can go build upon. They're like, okay, but how are you going to help me drive customer experience? I've got a bunch of business problems. 

0:12:46.3 Chris Koehler: And I think the beauty of this is ultimately you can craft the message based on the Persona, right? But it all works together. And I think that's what's missed so many times where you're like, okay, our value proposition is this for this Persona. Well, that works. But what happens when you get in front of maybe the C-suite? Does that message break down? Is it too product focused? Is it too technical? So being able to adjust the message based on the person you're talking to and what they care about, I think is really, really important.

0:13:16.0 Kailey Raymond: That's great. I love that. So in the C suite, you're building a company, in engineering, you're building a product, in marketing, you're building a loyal audience. It kind of applies everywhere. It also applies, I think, in altitudes too, of like, this is the highest level brand campaign. You can also quite literally build with the products in code every single day with Twilio. So some of the product level messaging really carries that through as well. So the flexibility in the application of the them is really interesting. Not an easy thing to achieve, but it must feel really good when you crack that code. So kudos, Adam and team for all the hard work you spent there.

0:13:52.3 Adam Morgan: It's nice. It all comes together. Yeah, that was definitely a high point for the rebuild.

0:13:57.0 Kailey Raymond: Absolutely. And Chris, you've spent decades in leadership positions and so this isn't your first rodeo. You've seen a rebrand or two. What's something about leading a rebrand like this that most people might underestimate? 

0:14:12.3 Chris Koehler: Probably the why and the change management. And everyone in the world thinks they're a marketer and everyone has an idea of what you should do. Everyone from my parents all the way to my kids as part of this. I think we want to go and we get excited about here's what it is and all of that. But you need to bring people along the journey, especially if you've had a long standing brand where it has value. It you feels ingrained in your culture and part and you're making changes to that. You need to explain why and you've got to have a lot of data points around that. So I think one of the things that we were very deliberate is we talk to a lot of people. We talk to the industry, we talk to customers, we talk to employees. And to really get a sense of, okay, where are we strong? What should we touch? What shouldn't we touch? There were a few things, I said, dad, I'm like, this is off limits. You can't do this. There's just...

0:15:05.8 Kailey Raymond: I want to hear that conversation.

0:15:07.8 Chris Koehler: It was like, you can't touch the logo. Sorry. The logo is like, you're not touching it. We're not changing the logo as part of that. But I think taking that input, getting all of that and then telling the story of why this matters, why it matters to employees, why it matters to customers, like that was, I think, probably the biggest piece that is a learning.

0:15:28.3 Kailey Raymond: I love this piece too. It's like a really simple lesson, but it's a really incredibly smart one, is the employee part of it. I think I might have underappreciated kind of coming into this, but they're an extension of your brand every single day. They're like your own little army of brand ambassadors. And so focusing on them is a really great call out to make sure that you have everybody on board in the journey and are getting their feedback along the way.

0:15:52.5 Chris Koehler: Can I give Adam and team a little kudos because we did this internally? Adam rolled it out. Well, first he had to do it in front of the board in the first... What was it, first 60 days, Adam? 

0:16:01.9 Adam Morgan: Yeah, something like that.

0:16:02.6 Chris Koehler: First 60 days. And so he absolutely crushed that. And then we shared it more broadly with the company. And the amount of messages I got from leaders, like people all over the company, oh, my gosh, I feel heard again, this represents who I am. It was remarkable. And at that point we knew, okay, there's something here, right? We've talked to a lot of people. But when you present in front of 5,000 employees and the feedback and Slack is blowing up and everyone's excited about it, you know you've sort of captured the hearts and minds of employees and then they're going to go out and, every day, tell the market, tell their customers, tell their parents, their friends and everything. So that, I think, is when you know you've kind of nailed it.

0:16:43.6 Kailey Raymond: I fully agree that the chat that day was really popping off in Slack. So well done, Adam. And I think maybe that voiceover that you do is like your future career in voiceover acting. I think there's something to be said.

0:16:55.9 Adam Morgan: Actually, it's an old part of that career. I used to do a lot of voiceover work back in the day.

0:16:59.9 Kailey Raymond: No way. Learning fun facts along the way.

0:17:02.3 Chris Koehler: Radio.

0:17:04.1 Adam Morgan: Radio.

0:17:04.8 Kailey Raymond: I love it.

0:17:07.5 Producer: Great customer experiences aren't magic. They're built. And Twilio is the platform that helps you build them. Every customer action, browsing your site, opening an email, reaching out to support, triggers instant AI powered personalized engagement across SMS, voice, email, chat and more. No delays, no guesswork, just the right message at the right moment. From automated messaging to seamless authentication to hyper personalized customer journeys, Twilio's customer engagement platform powers millions of interactions daily, helping businesses drive loyalty, optimize marketing spend and create experiences that people remember. Twilio is the ultimate toolbox for customer engagement. Ready to build experiences that matter visit Twilio.com 

0:17:58.5 Kailey Raymond: Adam, you've recently said that not all rebrands are built the same. So I'm wondering what your creative brief that you're looking to solve for was here. Like what needed to feel different, not just look different.

0:18:13.3 Adam Morgan: Well, let's just take a step back on a rebrand because there are many listening that may have not done it themselves. And I think it's really easy from the cheap seats on social media to just lambast people who are building brands and what they're thinking and what's going on. Brands take a long time to build and I've been a part of many others that have taken like five years or a year and a half. And this rebrand was so fast. It was only three months by the time we figured it out. And I want to give some kudos back to Chris because in large part, that wasn't because we were magical and knew what was going on. And we got lucky. Let's be real. 

0:18:49.3 Adam Morgan: There was lightning in a bottle with this builder story and we landed on it and then just expanded it. But I think the reason why it went so well and so quickly is because the leadership in this company, Chris and co and others on the board, really stood back and didn't create extra layers of decision making. They really just put a lot of trust in the team and then we were able to just fly.

0:19:11.0 Adam Morgan: So big kudos to everyone involved, including the leadership in helping this come across in such a great way. That said, when going back to those meetings, I'll just have to say, that day when we presented the brand and the company, top three meetings of my life, easily, one of the best moments, just because of the reception and the feedback and everything went so, so, so, so well. But it's not easy. Like, there was a... There were a lot of decisions. I know we were pouring over lots of different storylines. We were testing different messaging, like Chris said. We talked with customers and internal people and experts and outside folks, and we did it. We didn't want to take this lightly. I mean, changing a brand is a big deal. We did a huge research project with our customers just to find out, is this even viable? 

0:19:55.7 Adam Morgan: And here's the interesting part from that research, is that, when it came back, we were a little worried that it'd be like, oh, don't change it. You're going to lose all this equity. You're going to mess things up. No, the feedback that we got was, the more you double down on just unifying everything under this single new brand, the more opportunity there is with our customers. They were stoked about it. 

0:20:15.4 Adam Morgan: So anyhow, all in all, how do you create one? Like, that's another long discussion of how you go through and all the steps of making one. But I will just say that the things we've hit on that are really important in this conversation so far is, understanding what your audience cares about, understanding what you stand for, and making sure that Venn diagram lines up and then every other decision after that lines up with that story, which is our builder story.

0:20:40.2 Chris Koehler: And Kailey, I must say, the creative brief was poor Adam, he joins the company and one of the things I said to him is, I said, hey, we have to have a fast start. We've got to get some quick wins on the board. And he's like, what does that mean? I was like, well, we have a board meeting coming up in 60 days and I'd love to present some ideas around how we're thinking about the brand. He's like, you're kidding, right? I was like, no, come on.

0:21:08.7 Adam Morgan: That was week one. 

0:21:10.3 Chris Koehler: And he's like, are you serious? I was like, yeah, but sometimes... I think sometimes when you have a sense of urgency, you cut out the noise. You get very deliberate around, okay, here's what we've got to go do. This is an unreasonable timeframe. We get it. But it created focus of, like, here's how we've got to go. We've got to go nail this in the first 60 days. And I think we did give the team a lot of leeway because, again, the worst thing that can kill a rebrand is when everyone from the leadership team chimes in with a different perspective.

0:21:43.5 Chris Koehler: And then as a marketer, as a brand leader, you're like, oh, great, how am I supposed to take all of this? All of a sudden now I've got eight different points of view. How do I reconcile that? And then who matters? We're not going to be able to appease everyone. Or if we do, then we're really going to screw this up as part of that. So my directive to Adam was like, hey, go do what you need to go do. Go talk to these people. Go figure it out, and we'll come back and we'll get feedback. We'll do that before we go to the board, but we're going to give you the freedom to be creative and work through it. And they nailed it.

0:22:17.2 Kailey Raymond: I think that's really interesting. A lot of what you're saying is getting back to the heritage and the DNA of Twilio, right? And I mean, you mentioned this really briefly earlier, but you said the word Jaguar. So I'm going to leap on that because that copy nothing campaign that launched late last year was obviously headline grabbing. Like, really, really interesting to watch as a marketer. Turned a lot of heads. And the thing that you're pulling through here, that I think that there was some criticism for that campaign was it didn't feel super authentic to their audience. And this is something that I think is what you're pulling through really, really well with this kind of Twilio rebrand is this concept of authenticity. 

0:22:53.5 Kailey Raymond: People really resonate with that, right? So interrogating yourself and the central question of the campaign is like, is this going to resonate with your loyal customers, with your employees, and also expand it into potentially new people, new prospects as well. So I think that's a really interesting thing to achieve that balance in building this campaign. If you want to comment on Jaguar by all means.

0:23:19.1 Adam Morgan: Not so much. I mean, just to know that I've been witness to many brands moments that were just off because they didn't listen to the customer. They were just trying to find a big crazy idea, then hit the mark, which I see there's value in being fast to market, but listening to your audience, like when we were working through stories, we did a series of global focus groups to double, double check that we were resonating with our audience and we had customers there that we said, all right, here's the story, what do you think? And made sure that it was like, true, because you're right, Jaguar, they wanted faux leather interiors, not bright pink, fluffy pom poms. Like, it's just a totally different world.

0:23:58.2 Chris Koehler: Yeah, I mean, I think my initial reaction was much like that. But again, we weren't in the rear, right? 

0:24:04.2 Adam Morgan: That's true.

0:24:05.2 Chris Koehler: We don't have all the data.

0:24:06.0 Kailey Raymond: Totally.

0:24:06.5 Chris Koehler: We don't know what the brief was. We don't know that... And it's like, hey, actually North American sales are lagging and we're not seeing an increase and we have to do something totally different. And maybe it is that we've got to go after a brand new audience and we're going to upset the old audience, but that's okay. But again, everyone's a marketer.

0:24:26.5 Adam Morgan: Cheap seats.

0:24:27.9 Chris Koehler: We all have a point of view. And so we're like, there was a lot of negative pushback, but again, it's hard to know the dynamics of why that was all done. So, yeah.

0:24:36.7 Kailey Raymond: All press is good press, so...

0:24:38.9 Chris Koehler: Not always.

0:24:40.4 Kailey Raymond: Adam, along these lines, I'm wondering if creatively there was an early idea or concept that you had to kill? Even though you're really excited about it, it might have been a hard decision. Was there something in there that you had to decide to let go of? 

0:24:57.0 Adam Morgan: Well, absolutely. There were a lot of crazy ideas and I don't even know how far I'll go with explaining some of them. I will say, early on we had some visions of using some celebrities who were from Silicon Valley, more of a developer heritage, as a spokesperson to do some crazy stunts. And what we realized in the end, and bringing it back to the why was we didn't want a developer as a spokesperson. We wanted to make sure that this builder story was universal to all the audiences, as though we decided to abandon that idea. 

0:25:26.0 Adam Morgan: Not to say we may not use that in a very specific developer campaign. But that was one of the areas. I think there was also a crazy idea of a kidnapper van that Chris did, wasn't too keen about. And that's as far as I'll go with that idea. But we will find new ideas and we have a lot of other great activation ideas that are going to be coming out later this summer.

0:25:45.0 Chris Koehler: But I think the fact is like, you have to do the creative exploration around this, and if it's the immediate no, then we're never going to break through the noise. And I think that's the piece where I have an appetite, just from a personality of like, hey, let's be bolder. Let's figure something out. Let's do something that is a little riskier with our brand, but there's a limit. The kidnapper example is like, oh, that's clever. But how about more cash cab versus kidnap? 

0:26:16.6 Kailey Raymond: Yeah, for sure.

0:26:18.4 Chris Koehler: Context, you worry of like, I don't think I want the association around that. It's kind of negative. But again, the ability to go have a debate and have conversations and we're pushing the team to push the envelope and break through the noise. And the only way you can do that is you have to come up with the crazy ideas and then some will stick and others you're just going to be uncomfortable with, and that's okay.

0:26:38.4 Kailey Raymond: So the kidnapper van might be an example of not all press is good press. So that one's maybe too far outside of the limit. You also mentioned, there was the potential of a celebrity spokesperson. I feel like that is the hottest trend right now. Every company, even B2B companies, have celebrities as their spokespeople, which is interesting, and I obviously intuitively understand this. But it kind of goes back to this concept of authenticity too, is like, does this person feel like they're the representative of your company? And it just has to feel right. And I think it's really important when you're trying to find that spokesperson to make sure that it feels right and it's alongside that brand.

0:27:20.9 Chris Koehler: Kailey, on that point, can I add? I think it goes back to the best campaigns are the ones told through your customers. And I think that's the piece where sometimes we lose the narrative where we've got a celebrity that's a representation. It's like, yeah, okay, I won't name any names, but you're kind of like, okay, are they... Is that your target audience? Do they speak for the company, for the product, for the use cases around that? And so I think sometimes we lose our way where we want to get a little bit of the wow factor. And at the end of the day, maybe our customers should be the people in our campaigns, not celebrities.

0:27:57.4 Kailey Raymond: 100%. I'm excited to showcase more of our customers this year, so more coming soon. Chris, this one's going back to you. And it seems like there was this really big moment for both of you around some of the internal feedback that you were getting. So maybe that's this answer. But was there a moment when you felt like during this whole process that the new brand is really clicked for you in a way that was surprising? What was that moment? 

0:28:21.5 Chris Koehler: I think the first time Adam presented, we were at a one on one and he said, hey, I want to walk you through this. And he walked through the whole pitch and he was so good, but the passion he had as he shared it, and you could tell he had such ownership of it. He was so proud and excited about that. And I walked away from the discussion going, wow, it's evokes emotion out of me as like a builder. And so it was like, okay, maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm too close to it. And we did a leadership off site, and Adam walked through all the leaders globally in the marketing organization. 

0:28:57.1 Chris Koehler: And I took a step back and I looked at everyone's faces, and you could see people were so engrossed in your pitch, Adam. And then everyone was like, that was amazing. I was like, oh, man, we've got something here that I think is really, really going to resonate. And so at that moment, I was like, all right, we got it. Let's get it in front of the board. Let's get it in front of the rest of the world. And so that's sort of my moment.

0:29:20.8 Kailey Raymond: I was there in that room, and I can say there were definitely chills and people literally... Didn't you get a standing ovation that day? Which is not an easy thing to do in front of a room of marketers.

0:29:31.5 Adam Morgan: No, totally fair. The thing that was wild, that I didn't expect is... And I'm just gonna... This is gonna be really hard to describe visually because we're on audio here, but one of the elements we created, which was our logo, is a circle with four dots that represented the mouthpiece of the phone. And we couldn't change the logo because Chris told me I couldn't change the logo. So we were trying to figure out a way of how do we make that relevant to this bigger story. And we created these kind of unique shapes that were almost like bolted on really angular looking shapes. And we created this little teeny animation where the logo and the four little dots, those dots pushed to the corners and kind of made those shapes and expanded the story. It was just a simple device. 

0:30:13.6 Adam Morgan: If you go to our homepage right now, you'll see a very similar thing where the logo turns into these kind of abstract shapes. But the second I clicked the slide to that page that just had this little animation, the room erupted in applause. And I was like, what in the H is going on here? Because this is just a little animation. Like, why are they so stoked out of their brains to applaud for this little thing? But it was just because it was this transformation of how we're moving beyond where we've been in the past into something new. And that those elements of the logo are really like this guide pushing our boundaries. And I think I could make up whatever story I wanted from it, but it was just an interesting moment where people just got it, like that moment because they saw that little animation.

0:30:55.0 Kailey Raymond: Well, it's kind of what we've been talking about, right? It's like, you know your audience and it's the heritage that you're going after with the DNA of who Twilio is, but it's expanding what that looks like. It's like quite literally the visual representation of that. It just resonated with people because of that. It's like I can see who we are and I still feel that, and I can see where we're going all within this one animation. You're so close to this, Adam. And now it's out in the world. It's out for everybody to see. And I'm curious, is there like an asset or a line of copy or something that just really unlocked this voice in this new identity? What made the team say, that's it? 

0:31:36.8 Adam Morgan: So one of the things that we built as we kicked off this brand was a brand manifesto. And I think, again, it was just a story that tried to bring together not only this builder idea, but also the audience and what they cared about and the situation, and then also how our product fit within that and how it all just came together. There were a few parts of that manifesto that really just hit it. And I think part of it was first saying, it's like some of us, we just don't choose to be a builder. And there was this line that said something about, because being a builder isn't something we choose, it's just something we do, something we are. We have to build, be bold, try. 

0:32:14.0 Adam Morgan: And I think for me, when I hear that little phrase, it really gets at that deep human emotion that it's like the only person holding me back is myself. If I want to go out and make a dent in this world and be a builder and change things, I got to do it and I can't just wait for something to happen. I've got to do it and it's got to be a part of me, something deep and human and emotional. So that right there for me was just a fun thing that whenever I say that, I could see people light up because they feel that.

0:32:46.4 Kailey Raymond: Absolutely. You read it again and I truly felt it again. It's both inspirational and aspirational. And you've both said this so far. You've said the word emotion, which I think is something that all great brands do well. I can think of watching Nike ads and crying during the Olympics. And that's something that really is powerful and it resonates, and it resonates across B2C and B2B. You have to appeal to the human. So I think that that's something that this does really well. And kudos to you for pulling that off. We're going to wrap up on something fun, so we're going to do a rapid fire round you guys, are you ready to answer some questions, both of you, for all of these? 

0:33:29.5 Chris Koehler: Let's do it.

0:33:31.8 Adam Morgan: Okay.

0:33:31.9 Kailey Raymond: All right, let's go. Hope you're ready. First rapid fire question. What's one trait you think every builder needs to thrive right now? 

0:33:42.2 Chris Koehler: I can go. Adaptability.

0:33:45.8 Adam Morgan: I would say, vision, imagination.

0:33:51.8 Kailey Raymond: What's a business cliche you'd like to personally demolish with a sledgehammer? 

0:33:58.2 Chris Koehler: Do I have to pick just one? 

0:34:00.2 Kailey Raymond: Actually, I'd love for you to pick a few of them.

0:34:03.2 Chris Koehler: Let's circle back, move the needle. Let's double click. Let's take this offline. I don't know. I could keep going all day. I'm guilty of all of them. Can I demolish all of them? 

0:34:13.0 Kailey Raymond: I was going to ask, Adam, do you have any feedback to Chris on that? 

0:34:16.5 Adam Morgan: I'd like to think out of the box here for a second and tell you that I'm doubling down on all of those, but...

0:34:21.4 Chris Koehler: Yeah, doubling down is another good one.

0:34:25.1 Adam Morgan: I don't know if this is necessarily a cliche, but a perspective that I'd like to demolish with a sledgehammer, which is that creative thinkers should stay in the cave and that they shouldn't be leaders. I really think that they have an opportunity to provide a big vision for companies.

0:34:41.1 Kailey Raymond: I love that. Nice. This is a fun one. If this rebrand was a soundtrack, what would be the opening track? 

0:34:50.3 Chris Koehler: Oh, Adam.

0:34:52.5 Adam Morgan: I would say 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[vocalization]

0:34:57.2 Adam Morgan: Like, there's just a big moment coming, a little subtle. Maybe it's 8 bit version of it because it's a little more nerdy, but...

0:35:03.3 Kailey Raymond: I'm just thinking about the Barbie trailer now.

0:35:07.0 Chris Koehler: I'm going like, we built this city. We built this city on rock and roll. Like, get excited, get the mood going. I don't know.

0:35:16.0 Kailey Raymond: Okay, that works. I could feel it. Yeah, I can see it at a SCO or something playing really well. For sure. 

0:35:21.3 Adam Morgan: Good idea. All right.

0:35:22.1 Chris Koehler: Adam dancing on stage. I can totally...

0:35:24.2 Adam Morgan: No.

0:35:24.6 Kailey Raymond: A man of many talents, clearly. All right, last one, y'all. Who's the company outside of Twilio, who you admire for building boldly? 

0:35:34.5 Adam Morgan: I would say Rocket Mortgage.

0:35:36.9 Chris Koehler: Oh, I was going to say the same thing.

0:35:38.8 Adam Morgan: Really? Okay.

0:35:39.8 Chris Koehler: Yeah.

0:35:40.1 Adam Morgan: For years and years when I used to work at agency, I did so many bank ads and compliance and they were so terrible. And I really feel like they've done such a good job even being like more B2B-ish. But breaking out of it and having humanity and fun and playfulness. I think they've done a phenomenal job.

0:35:56.5 Chris Koehler: They're doing such an incredible job breaking through, especially in this time, obviously, where the interest rates are hard and mortgages and all that. That's fantastic. So there's a few others, actually, I look at as I think through, and it's hard not to go to the B2C brands because they are typically more creative and they take more risk on that front. I say, like one other fun one that I'm seeing a lot is Duolingo. They're doing Fun on the B2C and I've got the affinity for the Owl as we've got the internal Owl as our own, which Adam won't let me bring to the forefront more externally.

0:36:27.5 Adam Morgan: No. We're going to it just with measured approach. It's just I'm not the spokesperson.

0:36:32.9 Chris Koehler: Who's breaking through a lot of noise, being bold, I would say on the B2B side is probably ServiceNow. And what Colin and team are doing over there is they're really being bold and pushing quite a bit. It's hard to say as a former Adobe person, but I think Canva is doing a pretty incredible job as well, building a brand with a very tough competitor and one that was near and dear to my heart. So I think the team at Canva is doing some pretty incredible stuff too.

0:37:00.5 Kailey Raymond: I love it. Thanks for those. And I want to assure everybody that no Owls were harmed in the recording of this podcast. We love Owls here at Twilio. Adam, Chris, this was really fun. Thank you for kicking off season four of Builders Wanted with us and for giving us a behind the scenes look at building this brand. And a huge congrats to making it to launch day.

0:37:22.1 Adam Morgan: Thank you. This has been awesome.

0:37:23.9 Chris Koehler: Thank you.

[music]