Verve rebrands Lebara, a mobile operator used by millions across Europe

Lebara is a mobile virtual network operator – meaning it sells mobile service on another operator’s infrastructure – and has millions of customers across Europe. “What made it the right moment, I think, was that even internally there was a clear feeling the existing branding had gone stale, it wasn’t keeping pace with modern trends, and it didn’t reflect how dynamic Lebara actually is,” explains Global Design & UX Lead Angelina Severino. Outside the company, research carried out for Lebara’s Netherlands team showed a clear opportunity: while the business and the proposition had evolved, the identity had not fully kept pace, leaving a growing gap between the quality of the service Lebara offered and how the brand presented itself. The Hague-based strategic branding agency Verve was commissioned to redesign the identity and accompanying deliverables. “We asked Verve to align Lebara’s brand expression with what the company actually is: dynamic, modern and genuinely obsessed with its customers,” Severino notes. “What came back was a full brand design system that reflected exactly those qualities, and then went further. They took our motto, ‘A Smarter Choice,’ and evolved it into ‘Join a smarter perspective on mobile,’ something more philosophical, bigger than just a good deal.” “The telco category defaults to the same playbook. Clean sans serifs. Stock photography of people holding phones. A vague promise of connection. The visual language of reliability,” explains Verve’s Brand Strategist Patrick Boyle. “But Lebara’s product was already reliable when we first started working together. That wasn’t the problem to solve. The problem was perception,” Boyle continues. “It was all a matter of perspective. We wanted the new Lebara brand to feel bold and confident, to project the trustworthiness that the existing users felt, whilst making sure we kept its slightly gritty and opinionated charm. So we threw out all the telco conventions and started fresh.” From there, Verve built the strategic platform around the customers Lebara already had. “When you’re a Lebara user, you see things differently: you have a Smart Perspective on mobile,” Boyle adds. “That idea drove every creative decision. Lebara’s new distinctive brand assets are its warped typography, the parallax collages.”