B2B & Industry

8,640 sessions across 9 locations in 3 days for the Iqony brand launch

Iqony — the new green brand of the energy provider Steag — launched its internal brand rollout with photo booths at 9 locations simultaneously. In 3 days, the set-up produced 8,640 employee sessions, each with hardware fully wrapped in the Iqony CI, cardboard props carrying brand messages and direct instant output as a print or smartphone download. The visual brand touchpoint translated the abstract brand launch into a concrete, personally tangible experience for every employee — a shared moment of identification with the new brand.

More than 200 B2B brands from across Europe trust UpReach — from agencies to enterprise corporations.

The initial situation

With Iqony, Steag is building the brand for its green energy division anew — a brand-architecture decision that first has to be carried internally by the workforce before it can take effect externally. The standard methods for such rollouts are town halls, intranet campaigns and brand books — all push communication that creates too little connection.

The operational challenge was scaling across several locations at once. Employees from 9 different Steag locations were to experience the new brand physically at around the same time and under the same conditions — not over staggered roadshow weeks, but as a shared brand moment within a 3-day window.

In terms of content, the activation was to go beyond a pure selfie function. Employees were not only to photograph themselves but to actively engage with Iqony brand messages — as an identification and connection mechanic, not as a mere photo gimmick.

The UpReach solution

UpReach supplied several photo-booth set-ups, fully branded in the Iqony brand design. Housing wraps in the Iqony CI, a software interface in the Iqony look, curated brand worlds as backgrounds and themed filters — the stations were instantly recognisable to every employee as an Iqony touchpoint, not as a generic photo booth.

The central activation mechanic was the cardboard props carrying Iqony brand messages. Employees could pick up signs, speech bubbles and brand statements and be photographed with them — turning the passive selfie into active engagement with the new brand tone of voice. The props were deliberately low-threshold and creatively usable, to create a playful character.

Output options were two-track: a physical print to take away or digital delivery to one's own smartphone. Anyone who took the print home had a lasting brand asset on their desk. Anyone who chose digital delivery could bring the image into internal communication channels.

In addition, animated GIF captures for employees who wanted a more dynamic output. The output choice was left to each employee. More on the hardware: /produkte/pro-v1.

Setup & Logistics

Lead time five weeks: two weeks for the parallel wrapping of several hardware set-ups in the Iqony CI, two weeks for software configuration (Iqony brand worlds, filters, print layouts), one week for the pre-production of the cardboard props carrying Iqony brand messages and parallel logistics planning for the simultaneous delivery to 9 locations.

Delivery and set-up at all 9 Steag locations within a single day, coordinated through UpReach technician teams. Each station was calibrated on site by an UpReach lead and adjusted to the respective light conditions. On-site support was available across locations over the 3 activation days.

The print pipeline ran in parallel with digital delivery: at the touch interface, employees could choose the output mechanism they wanted, and the respective output was triggered immediately. Performance monitoring ran via the central UpReach cloud CMS — Iqony brand owners had real-time visibility of session volume per location, output distribution and daily frequency.

Results by the numbers

8.640

employee sessions

locations activated in parallel

days of activation

8,640 sessions in 3 days across 9 locations equals around 320 employee activations per location per day — a strong figure for internal rollouts with no external reach mechanic. The activation density shows that employees sought out the touchpoints voluntarily and repeatedly.

The output distribution between print, digital delivery and animated GIFs delivered additional insights into employee preferences — a data layer that was usable for the Iqony internal communications teams after the activation.

The central qualitative effect lies in brand identification. Every photo, every print on a desk, every image shared in internal channels is a repeated brand touchpoint — translating the abstract brand-architecture decision into everyday material visible thousands of times over.

Key takeaways from this setup

A brand launch needs physical artefacts: brand books and intranet posts create no connection. A printed photo with a brand message on an employee's desk, by contrast, works as a repeated touchpoint over weeks — low effort per asset, high cumulative brand visibility in the internal everyday.

Props as a brand bridge: cardboard props carrying brand messages have a decisive side effect — they make the employee pick up brand statements and actively stage them. The passive photo becomes active engagement with the brand tone of voice.

A synchronous multi-location rollout beats a roadshow: when all 9 locations are activated within the same 3-day window, a shared brand moment is created that is talked about internally, company-wide. A roadshow stretched over 9 weeks does not create that communicative density.