3M - Enterprise

Refreshing a global enterprise brand after 30 years takes a village.

Global Brand Voice 06

3M

Enterprise brand voice rollout

In 2015, 3M launched its first rebrand in 30 years, across 87 countries and roughly 60,000 products. Embedded with the brand team, I turned the new strategy into messaging divisions could actually use.

My role
Copy and content writer (embedded at 3M): brand messaging and content across divisions
Team
3M brand & PR team, division marketing leads, agency partners
Channels
Brand messaging · product launches · trade publications · thought leadership · internal comms
3M brand brochure spread
01 · The challenge

A new brand strategy, 87 countries, and roughly 60,000 products.

The strategy was set at the top. The hard part was making it usable: turning big brand ideas into language that division marketers, product teams, and PR could pick up and apply to their own work, without losing the thread that tied it all together.

02 · The idea

Science. Applied to Life.

The new platform put people at the center of the science. My job was to carry that idea into every division's language: grounding complex innovation in real outcomes, and celebrating the work employees bring into the world.

03 · What I made

Brand messaging

Language that reframed 3M's mission around bettering people's lives.

Employee stories

Pieces that honored employee contributions and rallied them to a new mission.

Product brochures

Launch materials that made complex innovation easier to understand.

Thought leadership

Content that made 3M's expertise easier to share, internally and externally.

04 · The work
3M brand brochure

3M reframed its mission around bettering people’s lives.

3M brochure page
3M brochure page
3M brochure page
3M brochure page

It took a macro view of the micro components behind everyday technology.

3M product brochure page
3M product brochure page
3M product brochure page

It rooted unseen innovation in daily outcomes.

3M thought leadership piece
3M thought leadership piece
3M thought leadership piece
3M thought leadership piece

It made thought leadership accessible and engaging.

And it brought the value of the small, often invisible components that power modern life into clearer view.

Results

The leader in performance and safety, redesigned for a new era.

The rebrand gave a fresh perspective to 3M's work and legacy market identity. It unified a vast global operation with one voice for science in service of real lives: division by division, product by product.

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