How IE University reduced agency spend by 30% with a design system built in zeroheight

IE University has been around since the 1970’s when they opened their first campus in Madrid. Back then, they catered to post-grads looking to earn business and law degrees.

Since opening, IE University has grown to include campuses all over the world. They’ve also partnered with prestigious organizations like Brown and Singapore Management University to offer co-branded degrees.

With so much expansion, the university’s Board of Directors noticed a big problem: the brand had become inconsistent.

To fix the problem, they hired Crowdland, a Spanish marketing agency, to create a design system.

The goal was to increase brand consistency, improve employee efficiency, and reduce agency spend. Four years after Crowdland was hired to create the design system, they’ve made significant progress on all three.

Improving Brand Consistency

When the Board initially reached out to Crowdland, they were concerned that the brand was watered down.

Emanuel Martínez, Head of Content Marketing at IE University recalls, “Until we started implementing the design system, we didn’t know how much we actually needed it.” Back then, employees thought that just adding the logo to material meant it was on-brand.

The result of that attitude was a slew of marketing materials that included the IE logo but were disparate otherwise. Crowdland started by meeting employees where they were by creating easy to follow usage guidelines that ensured they were using it properly.

After getting the whole organization up to speed on the proper use of the logo, they’ve moved on to creating usage guidelines for color, icons, and typography effectively ensuring that every aspect of marketing materials is consistent.

Emanuel remarks, “Now, they all know that branding matters. They know that you have to use the logo, certain colors, certain fonts, and that makes it IE.”

Mariano Peláez, Founder and Head of Design, believes that a consistent visual look and feel is paramount for global brands. He mentioned, “A worldwide company has to sell a uniqueness and a strong brand around the world.” And he isn’t alone in his sentiment. Research demonstrates that consistent marketing efforts increase both brand trust and loyalty.

Making All Employees More Efficient

While the Board was initially concerned with brand consistency, it was also quite clear that there were massive inefficiencies.

Before the design system, employees were creating bespoke marketing materials for each campaign which is best described as a manual, time-intensive process.

Mariano explains, “Before the design system, employees were spending two to three days to develop a single marketing material.”

The design system helped cut down on the most time-intensive parts of developing marketing materials. Employees had a single place to find the components they needed, like the logo. And, they had guidance on how to create materials – no need to spend hours agonizing over small decisions anymore.

Creating and maintaining a single source of truth for brand guidelines has significantly increased employee efficiency. Mariano furthers, “Now, they can produce the same thing in three hours.”

Just enacting a design system made the marketing department at IE University 95% more efficient. All of the extra time has made room for innovation and an increase in revenue.

Reducing Reliance on Agencies

Operating without a design system wasn’t just affecting IE University employees, the university was also forced to rely on localized marketing agencies.

While the agencies were able to produce great-looking materials, working with so many across different continents only further perpetuated brand inconsistency.

Since the launch of the design system, Crowdland and IE University have been able to reel in agencies. “Without the design system, the agencies had complete control. Now, the agency has to go to the design system to download the correct materials,” Mariano notes.

The design system has allowed the University to unify the work of agencies across multiple time zones and countries. But, it also allowed the University to shift its mindset on agency spending wholesale.

Now, they’re using agencies to support high-value, larger-scale projects vs. day-to-day work. Koldo Ugarte, Founder and Managing Director at Crowdland observes, “We changed the methodology…the agency used to do everything. Now, the departments can do a lot of things by going into Figma and using the design system.”

With the new approach, IE University has cut agency spend by 30%.

Continuing to Broaden Impact

No doubt, the design system Crowdland built in zeroheight has done wonders for the marketing and brand teams at IE University.

But that’s not where they plan to stop. In 2023, Crowdland is onboarding one department a month to the design system. As the number of employees using the design system increases, the benefits should become even more substantial.

When asked about the future of the design system, Koldo states, “The design system has saved time, money, and headaches. It also increased productivity which was the main goal. It should only continue to meet its goals.”