At a global level, Deloitte works to tell progressive impact stories as part of its advertising. In 2022, Deloitte’s US Brand team turned to PartnersCreative to re-imagine client and market stories in light of new themes around innovation, trust, resilience and shaping the future. The constraints? Tell those stories while illustrating Deloitte’s role with just five words and an image.

We began by looking at different storytelling conventions, ultimately using ideas like pivot stories or progressive stories to guide how words worked. From there, we generated different stories for each of the four themes. Stories focused on cloud, AI, cyber, market resilience, sustainability and more. We worked broadly to conceive images that helped to illustrate each story.

To fit Deloitte’s brand, which features naturally circular imagery, we worked with animation house Dystnct Media to develop intricate 3D animations — a dozen in total.

In one digital ad, lights pierce a black box ultimately revealing a transparent green orb accompanied by a five-word trust story that pivots on the word “governed” — Unknown Opaque Governed Illuminated Transparent. In another, a 3D space helmet reflects a launch into space accompanied by a progressive five-word story about innovation — Unthinkable Daunting Complex Possible Achieved. Additional ads focused on technology transformation and resilience.

Then we built out a campaign featuring these images and corresponding five-word stories, including banner ads, social posts, pre-roll, print and specific sponsored buys, such as New York Times flex frames. For media where sound was available, such as pre-roll, the stories included voice-overs and mini soundscapes that added additional context and dimension. The digital work was complemented by a series of five-word print ads.