I Drove £49.5m to Pipeline, 80% Conversion and 60% Cost Savings
Client
Sage
Agency
In-House
My Role
Senior Director, Global Senior Creative Director Of Experience Design
(Product, Brand, Experience)
Skills Used
Executive Sponsorship & Budget Leadership
Cross-Functional Team Building
Strategy, Creative & Design Direction
UX & UI Design
Design System Development
Photo & Video Direction
Prototyping & User Testing
Executive Presentation & Stakeholder Alignment
The Challenge
Sage’s product tours were outsourced, inconsistent, and underperforming. They felt like static sales decks rather than dynamic journeys, lacking clarity, personalisation, and scalability. Previous tours had been built as stand-alone iframe components, isolating them from the wider site experience and making scaling difficult. The self-initiated brief was to deliver an in-house model that aligned Brand, Product and UX, proved higher performance, and created a repeatable framework for growth.
The Solution
I built Sage’s first cross-functional creative team, bridging gaps between Brand, Product and UX. I secured executive sponsorship by reframing the tour as infrastructure, showing how a scalable, repeatable model would reduce duplication and deliver measurable ROI. I led with strategy, prototyped and validated multiple routes, and delivered a format that blended authentic customer stories with interactive product demonstrations. The new design was architected in Sitecore as part of the Sage Design Language System, creating a modular, localisable framework that could be updated rapidly and reused across products, regions and departments, while also seeding a unified asset bank.
The Impact
The tour became Sage UK’s top-performing marketing asset, driving £49.5m pipeline with 80% MQL-to-SQL conversion, and +40% increase in engagement. In-house production cut costs by 60% over £4m across 50 products. We built a reusable design and asset library, while establishing a new operating model and culture of collaboration across Brand, Product, and UX.
Challenges and Breakthroughs
Ups and Downs
Initiating this project was a rollercoaster, echoing the challenges of the earlier design language system work. Securing sponsorship and company-wide approval demanded months of negotiation, with the CMO and EVP of Brand needing sustained persuasion before committing. My previous efforts to raise design quality helped, gradually winning support across departments and creating enthusiasm for the potential of doing things differently.
The project stretched over eight months as momentum built, but once aligned, it catalysed a cultural shift. For the first time, Product, UX, and Brand collaborated closely on a shared outcome, producing assets that served multiple teams and showing what was possible through unified effort. This collaboration reshaped internal expectations and became a turning point for how Sage approached design and creative capability.
Production was equally testing. Actors, long the standard in Sage shoots, were vetoed by CMO, forcing us to rely on a single real customer working on an outdated interface - hardly the ideal showcase for a global product tour. Directing a non-professional in that environment required compromise and patience, and inevitably the final design could not fully realise my original vision.
Yet despite these constraints, the tour became Sage’s top-performing marketing asset, generating £49.5m in pipeline. The experience was a test of resilience and character, proving that persistence and leadership could turn imperfect conditions into meaningful results.
Concepts
Strategic Exploration
I began with sketching to explore how the tour could connect product, brand and customer stories. These ideas became five routes: Focus placed real customers in dynamic workspaces, Good & Bad contrasted manual struggle with Sage simplicity, Happy Path mapped an office journey, and 2 streamlined MVP’s proved immediate value. User testing confirmed that interactivity drove deeper engagement and we benchmarked against best-in-class tours to ensure Sage matched global standards.
Concept Refinement
Chosen Route “Focus”
The chosen direction seamlessly blended customers and products within authentic workspaces. Navigation allowed fluid movement between customer stories at any stage, with offices and environments transforming dynamically to showcase Sage’s benefits.
Illustration vs. Reality
I explored illustration, both using our in house style and photo realistic style as an alternative to live action, offering control and consistency for the product tour while avoiding the challenges of finding willing customers for shoots.
Prototypes & Testing
User Testing
Working with our in-house technologist, I created a high-fidelity prototypes which we tested with UserZoom against live tours. Participants explored 30–40% more interactions, discovered testimonials instantly, and acted on clearer CTAs at a higher rate. Ease of use scored strongly and feedback guided refinements, giving executives measurable proof to invest and predicable business performance.
Delivery
Lights, Camera, No Actors
Production brought new hurdles. Actors, the standard in Sage shoots, were suddenly vetoed by the CMO.We could only find one real customer last minute using an outdated product. I storyboarded alternatives and actors coached on set, adapting the concept while keeping the vision alive. It was a compromise, but it captured authenticity and proved the resilience of the team.
Final Design…But Not
With assets in place we delivered a responsive design adapted to the limited customers and product scope available. It was not the full original concept, but it marked a major step forward as a customer acquisition tool and became the foundation for global rollout. Built in Sitecore as a componentised framework, it enabled cost-effective localisation and rapid adaptation for new markets and product lines.
Customer Brand Assets
Revving Up Customer Stories
The tour created a centralised library of video, photography and illustration, adopted into the Sage Design Language System. It replaced siloed production with a reusable toolkit powering campaigns, product marketing and communications. Alongside this, we elevated Sage’s customer stories, replacing flat content with richer, more authentic narratives that captured the real value of the products in action. Together these assets set a new benchmark for storytelling and brand consistency across the company
Outcome
£49.5m pipeline contribution
80% MQL to SQL conversion
60% cost saving versus outsourcing
Engagement up 30–40% in testing
Reusable asset bank powering the Sage DLS
First cross-functional in-house build at Sage
Framework localised for USA, France, Germany, Spain
Reusuable component on Sitecore
“During Paul’s time as Senior Creative Director at Sage, he proved to be a creative powerhouse with visionary strategies and ability to translate ideas into creative concepts. His strategic mindset and commitment to excellence were evident in every project he led. Paul can drive innovation and deliver results.”
Amanda Francoeur - Creative Director - Sage