Content that’s on brand, on time, and on point.
VML delivers a unified global identity at record speed with Adobe Express.
Objectives
Empower local teams to create on-brand content quickly and efficiently
Increase content velocity to power brand-defining campaigns
Streamline workflows of 200 social media leads worldwide to launch a new visual brand identity
Results
70% faster creation of final assets
1 to 2 days saved per larger campaign
1.5 to 2.5 hours saved per social media post, accelerating global content delivery
One story, thousands of voices.
For Alex Cree, the power of a brand isn’t just in the visuals — it’s in the people who bring it to life.
So when VML, the powerhouse creative agency, merged two of WPP’s largest subsidiaries and needed to roll out a global rebrand in just three months, Cree saw not just a challenge but a chance to unify teams through collaboration. As executive director of global marketing communications, she rallied hundreds of voices across 60 markets around a shared identity and purpose.
“What drives me is connecting people around a common goal,” she says. “And at this scale, the diversity of talent and perspectives we get to work with every day is incredible.”
With 26,000 employees in 150+ offices — including hubs in London, Kansas City, New York, São Paulo, and Shanghai — VML is trusted by global companies like Microsoft, Unilever, Coca-Cola, and Wendy’s to create connected brand stories that blend emotional resonance with digital innovation.
But in 2023, following a sweeping WPP consolidation, it was VML’s turn to become the story. The agency needed a new global identity that delivered consistency at scale and met rising content demands.
Cree and the global marketing communications team had just three months to execute the rebrand. It wasn’t just about new visuals, it was about uniting cultures, systems, and 200 social media managers worldwide to tell the new VML story with one voice.
“I’ve managed several mergers in my career, but nothing of this magnitude,” Cree says. “We needed tools to immediately unify our storytelling worldwide.”
Cree turned to Adobe Express to support the rollout of the new global brand identity by enabling local teams to create on-brand content quickly and efficiently using customisable templates. The result was a 70% faster content creation process — and a rebrand that launched right on time.
“This was one of the most significant transformations in our industry’s recent history,” Cree says. “What made it remarkable was the scale and speed of the integration. It brought together different teams, cultures, and technology in a very short time frame.”
“Adobe Express was a crucial tool that allowed us to quickly create and distribute content. To achieve that level of brand consistency so early in a rebrand is a major achievement.”
Alex Cree
Executive Director of Global Marketing Communications, VML
The efficiency breakthrough.
The VML rebrand required a revamp of tools and workflows, not just visual restructuring.
“In the past, our global team would send out templates for local teams to use, with varying degrees of success,” Cree says. “Some markets stayed on brand, while others struggled to adapt the templates. Inconsistencies were rife.”
Often, the marcomms team wouldn’t see problematic social posts until after they were live. Many local teams of non-creatives lacked the necessary design skills to confidently create templates in Adobe Photoshop, resorting instead to a patchwork of tools to cobble together content, which slowed collaboration and impacted content quality, often resulting in rogue content significantly impacting quality.
Adobe Express quickly became a strategic enabler. In the space of three months, the brand team created 200 templates for social posts, explicitly designed around the VML core concept of creating connected brands to drive meaningful client relationships and growth. Adobe Express allows them to lock down brand elements such as fonts, logos, and colours to maintain uniformity and prevent non-creative users from altering crucial brand elements. The templates are easily adapted for local languages so international teams can customise content without compromising brand integrity.
“One of the reasons we were able to get all those templates out for the rebrand as fast as we did was the seamless integration between Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Adobe Express,” Cree says. “We used Adobe Creative Cloud to create high-quality designs and then easily made them available in Adobe Express via Creative Cloud Libraries for other teams to adapt safely by staying within brand guidelines. The time savings were massive.”
Social media managers worldwide had access to a global template library in Adobe Express that included locked templates for Instagram, LinkedIn, and X, along with the VML intranet and website, that teams could use to announce award wins, new employees, new clients, and other significant moments. The moment the rebrand launched, VML achieved consistency almost instantly across all social media content, a critical factor for the company’s global marketing efforts.
Staying effortlessly aligned.
Fresh off the success of the identity rebrand, VML began using Adobe Express to generate content for major campaigns, including the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. In this live event, the world’s leading advertising and communications agencies showcase their best work and compete for coveted awards.
The comms for Cannes Lions is all about preparation, speed, and strategy. With content flying fast, the VML global social media team collaborates live — reviewing posts instantly and pivoting in real time.
“Cannes Lions is incredibly high pressure,” Cree says. “People get excited to push content out, and without a consistent, cohesive strategy, it can quickly become chaotic.”
This year, with Adobe Express templates in their toolkit, the VML marcomms team delivered more than 300 posts across global channels in just one week, maintaining a cohesive visual identity while moving at top speed.
“I’ve done Cannes Lions many times, and it was so much easier and more streamlined to produce the content with Adobe Express,” Cree says. “The consistency was there, and the visual and messaging elements came together seamlessly.”
Global team, unified tools.
It didn’t take long to train people on the user-friendly interface of Adobe Express. Within eight months, the VML team created multiple libraries containing hundreds of new templates and trained more than 200 employees across the global VML network, dramatically reducing dependency on designers.
Marketing users have responded enthusiastically, pointing to tangible improvements in their agility.
“It's great being able to create template assets so the team can fill in the blanks whilst I'm away,” says Luna Fejes, marketing manager at VML.
In addition to ensuring compliance, the integrated workflow has sent content velocity skyrocketing. Social media leads now produce final assets 70% faster and are saving 1.5 to 2.5 hours per post by editing templates instead of starting from scratch. For larger campaigns, they’re saving one to two full days that would have been spent briefing and reviewing with designers.
“Adobe Express streamlines my workflow, making it simple and enjoyable to create and customise content,” says Fiona Jessup, senior marketing manager at VML. “The ease of use means I can focus on creativity while ensuring the assets I create stay on brand with minimal effort.”
Real-time collaboration among geographically dispersed teams has also improved. For example, The Future 100, a guide to trends shaping consumer spending and behaviour, is VML’s yearly flagship thought-leadership project. In the past, local markets depended on Cree’s team to re-create assets in different languages. Now, they can easily translate and localise the content themselves.
It’s not just high-profile projects that are seeing an impact. Team members across the organisation now have the autonomy to centralise their daily workflows, saving time and streamlining content approvals.
“Adobe Express is a total game-changer for my workflow,” says Jamie Beard, director of global marketing communications at VML. “It’s a powerful tool with user-friendly functionality that saves me hours every single week.”
“The idea of connected brands is at the core of everything we do. Empowering teams with tools like Adobe Express is a vital part of that.”
Alex Cree
Executive Director of Global Marketing Communications, VML
Expanding brand expertise.
Looking ahead, Cree’s team is exploring Adobe Firefly integration as part of a broader suite of AI products. They’re also continuing to onboard new internal teams to Adobe Express, including the talent acquisition team of 100 people overseeing end-to-end candidate journeys.
It’s all part of VML’s focus on connected brands — not only as a client promise but as a way of working.
“The idea of connected brands is at the core of everything we do,” Cree says. “Even internally, we walk the walk. Empowering teams with tools like Adobe Express is a vital part of that.”
Learn how Adobe Express can help your team move faster, stay on brand, and create content that connects.
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