Let There Be Change

Read the campaign story

Accenture launched Let There Be Change on 14 October 2020 with a new company purpose. Droga5, then within Accenture Interactive, developed the campaign. The existing greater-than symbol connected a rollout across internal channels and external advertising, including television, digital and social. It provided one direction for a broad professional-services organisation.

The source is a company announcement, not an independent evaluation of campaign effects. Spending and company-scale figures cannot demonstrate advertising effectiveness. A purpose statement also does not prove that every proposed transformation benefits all affected people. This case treats later expressions as one platform family and examines the relationship between a broad promise and the specific decisions needed to make it meaningful.

Editorial interpretation: a large service business needs more than a memorable line. Employees, partners and customers encounter different parts of the organisation, so the promise must remain intelligible across many situations. A shared visual device can provide recognition while a common purpose supplies direction. The difficult work is translating that direction into specific service conversations, especially when different customers face very different constraints, risks and reasons for considering change.

Editorial interpretation: optimistic change language is persuasive only when it acknowledges trade-offs. A transformation can improve one measure while creating costs or disruption elsewhere. A responsible adaptation would identify who is affected, what improvement is intended and how progress will be checked. It would not use a broad claim of shared value to avoid difficult questions. The campaign should invite a more concrete discussion of choices rather than make change sound automatically beneficial.

Translate the platform for distinct service contexts

Ask each team to complete a simple sentence explaining what the shared promise means for one customer task. Compare the answers for consistency and specificity. If every team repeats the slogan without naming an action, the platform has not yet become useful. Keep room for different applications while avoiding claims that the organisation cannot substantiate across its entire offer.

Align internal understanding before external scale

Employees should be able to explain why the positioning changed and what, if anything, changes in their work. Give them examples and space to challenge vague language. Do not confuse a launch presentation with adoption. Test whether front-line teams can answer a realistic customer question in terms of the new promise without needing to improvise capabilities or commitments that do not exist.

Name the trade-offs behind improvement

For every proposed transformation, identify who gains, who bears effort and what risks remain. Use measures appropriate to the actual project rather than a single promotional definition of value. A brand can advocate progress while being candid about implementation costs and uncertainty. That candour helps separate a serious professional proposition from a general celebration of novelty or change for its own sake.

A small test for another brief

Proposed test: a small consultancy could develop one shared positioning statement, then ask three service teams to apply it to different fictional client briefs before using it in public advertising.

Measure whether readers understand the common offer, can distinguish the service options and recognise the trade-offs. Evaluate internal clarity before spending on broad reach, and keep campaign response separate from project outcomes.

Stop if the platform encourages unsupported claims of universal benefit, conceals costs or causes teams to promise services they cannot deliver.

• Write the literal service promise and the evidence needed to support it.
• Have each team produce a short explanation, a limitation and a realistic next step.
• Ask independent readers to compare the explanations for consistency and usefulness.