Sage puts the needs of today’s businesses at the heart of its new global marketing campaign

ATLANTA (May 19, 2022) - Sage (FTSE: SGE), the leader in accounting, financial, HR, and payroll technology for small and mid-sized businesses SMB, unveils its first global marketing campaign following its brand refresh in April. The new campaign is designed to reflect the changing needs of its SMB customers worldwide and bring the brand refresh to life.

Representing Sage's new purpose-to knock down barriers so everyone can thrive-the campaign shows how this starts with customers. It focuses on real life customers and the confidence and control that Sage software can deliver through simplicity and insight with a human touch to help business flow.

The campaign launches with two 30" hero films created by VCCP London featuring Sage customers Laura Rose, CEO, Equestrian Rose Ltd and Joanne Halsall, Head of Finance, Crow Wood Leisure.

Customer stories are elevated through playful character animation, set within a black and white world. The customer voices are connected using the iconic Sage green flow-a representation of how the Sage experience lifts customers to the next level of their business journey.

Laura Rose said, "For me, putting us-their customers-front and center in a national campaign shows just how much Sage believes in SMBs. They understand how we love to talk about our business and hear from each other about the joy and hard work tied up in them. It's motivating and reassuring in equal measure and it's nice that Sage gets that."

To fuel the business confidence that the advertising focuses on, Sage today launches Sage Membership, giving customers and partners' automatic access to exclusive benefits such as expert human advice, learning, and community. This includes access to Member Masterclass, which offers exclusive talks and articles from the world's leading experts and trailblazers on the challenges that are most important for businesses today-created exclusively for Sage customers and partners and available for a limited time to everyone. Season one will give expert human advice on how to find and keep great people such as featuring Michael Acton Smith, Co-founder of Calm, Khalilah Olokunola, VP of Human Resources at TRU Colors Brewery, and Charlie Gladstone, Entrepreneur and Co-found of Do.

Sage, a long time champion of small and medium businesses, worked with VCCP London, to create the campaign, and SomeOne to oversee the Brand and strategic development, alongside Interim EVP Brand Marketing for Sage, Susie Moore.

This is the first campaign VCCP, with its global content studio Girl&Bear and Product and Service Innovation company Bernadette, has produced for Sage. SomeOne will lead the roll-out of the refreshed brand and will continue to oversee its implementation.

The new campaign cements Sage's reputation as the right partner for SMBs, globally. TV advertising will be supported by an expansive out of home (OOH) campaign as well as digital and social. A sweeping digital activation of the Sage flow throughout the new Elizabeth Line tube stations will also bring the campaign to life.

With a fully integrated approach, the Sage campaign activity has been closely aligned with the roll out of the refreshed Sage brand, created by Wolff Olins in conjunction with Homebrew which debuts a modern look and feel across the company's main touchpoints. Seed Animation Studio designed, directed, and animated the moving image content for TV and online.

Cath Keers, Chief Marketing Officer, Sage:"It's tough being in business right now. Our refreshed brand is about how we show up for customers globally-removing complexity, delivering insights, and building human
connections for them, for our colleagues and within society. We've been a trusted brand for SMBs since Sage was a start-up 40 years ago, but the way we support them has changed and the refresh will enable us to reflect that consistently across all our markets."

Mark Orbine, Executive Creative Director at VCCP London added: "Sage represents all the proud, gritty, and determined business owners in the world. From those businesses founded from side hustles and kitchen table start-ups all the way up to those more mature and established businesses, the brand refresh is all about putting those customers at the very heart of Sage as they continue to challenge the business world every day."

The global brand platform by Sage is live from today and will run across multiple markets including the UK, US, Canada, South Africa, France, Spain, and Germany. The integrated campaign will roll out across multiple formats including TV, OOH, social, radio, OLV, and digital. Media has been planned and executed by Neo Media World.

Notes to Editors
For any questions please contact Tess Murray, Group Communications Manager at [email protected]

Campaign credits

Campaign Title: Voices of business
Client: Sage
Advertising Agency: VCCP
CEO: Michael Sugden
Executive Creative Director: Mark Orbine
Creative Director: Tony Hector
Associate Creative Directors: Tori Fannon & Jade Sturman
Creative: Teodora Nicolae & Malina Giurgea
Business Director: Alexandra Gluck
Senior Account Director: Harriet Guppy
Account Directors: Kate Jackson, David Jenkins, Theo Moran, Dylan Blakey-Milner
Senior Account Manager: Amy Kiff
Account executive: Lily Snow
Global Planning Director: Rachel Walker
Senior Planner: Rufus Neville
Junior Planner: Gabriel Bather
Global Executive Agency Producer: Andy Leahy
Agency Producer: Rosie Good
Integrated Project Director: Harriet Lea
Agency Creative Producer: Rosie Grieg, Geraldine Burkohl
Head of Studio: Mark Stone
Studio Manager: James Perry
Design Lead: Clary Vikstrom
Designer: Rebecca Rollings

Bernadette:
CX Creative Director: Jon Bancroft
Associate Project Director: Ravi Patel
Senior Project Manager: Anthony Grace, Leandro Winter
Technical Lead: Nathaniel Hulley
Developer: Mike Beckman
Design Director: David Green
Senior Designer: Linas Jovaisas, Nigel O'Toole
Designer: Dexter Marshall, Ben Butler, Adam Sheperd

Media Buying Agency: Neo
Managing Partner: Vanessa Bruce
Media Strategy team: Alexandria Oliver, Curtis Sinclair
Media Planning team: Carmen Grigore, Erica Beer and Thomas Dickinson
Media Buying team: John-James Harrisson, Michael Murray, Nicholas Williams, Thomas Balaam, Rikul Sudra

Production Company: Girl & Bear
Director: Seed Animation Studio
Creative Director (Seed): Morgan Powell
Executive Producer(Seed):Neil Kidney
Executive Producer: Greta Wynn Davies
Producer: Maxine Denton
Production Manager: Joe Fathers
Production Assistant: Maddy Holmes
DoP: Robin Whenary
Animation & Post-Production Company: Seed Animation Studio
Animation & Post Producer: Viki Bebok
Editor: Joe Eckworth
Colourist: Steffan Perry (Company 3)
Audio Post-Production Studio: Jungle Studios
Audio Engineer - Ben Leeves

About Sage

Sage exists to knock down barriers so everyone can thrive, starting with the millions of small and mid-sized businesses served by us, our partners, and accountants. Customers trust our finance, HR, and payroll software to make work and money flow. By digitizing business processes and relationships with customers, suppliers, employees, banks, and governments, our digital network connects SMBs, removing friction and delivering insights. Knocking down barriers also means we use our time, technology, and experience to tackle digital inequality, economic inequality, and the climate crisis. Learn more at www.sage.com.

About VCCP

VCCP is an international integrated communications agency, founded in 2002 on the principles of simplicity, collaboration, un-preciousness, and integration around ideas rather than channels.

We are the challenger agency for challenger brands and transform the fortunes of our clients by challenging and disrupting the categories they operate in.

With offices in Roblox, London, Madrid, New York, Prague, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, and Sydney, VCCP produces award-winning work for clients including Walkers, O2, comparethemarket.com, easyJet, Domino's, Canon, and Cadbury.

About Girl&Bear

Girl&Bear is a global content creation studio and the home of VCCP's makers around the world. Girl&Bear exists to deliver craft without compromise, creating world-class content and delivering scale through technology.

Operating in all of VCCP's offices, Girl&Bear has a global presence in London, Madrid, Prague, San Francisco, New York, Singapore, Sydney, and Shanghai, and offers offshore solutions out of the Czech Republic, South Africa, and Asia Pacific.

Girl&Bear produces work for O2, White Claw, and Samsung.

About Some One

Gary Holt is a branding and brand strategy specialist with over 30 years' experience. Holt is Founder and Strategy Director of branding agency SomeOne, based in London and Sydney. The agency SomeOne is currently ranked as the leading branding agency in the UK.

About Neo Media World
Neo Media World (Neo) is a digital transformation agency with a global footprint. Neo was launched in 2006 by WPP to fill the gap in performance marketing, and we are now fully integrated with Mindshare to deliver full funnel media for our clients.

Neo has a client-centric approach focusing on driving sustainable business outcomes for clients.

With our agile operating model and multi-disciplinary experts, we design strategy with flawless execution covering a wide range of capabilities including:
Paid Media, Commerce, Customer Experience, SEO, Data and Tech, Affiliate Marketing and Partnerships, Advanced Analytics and Consulting.

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