Zoom introduces animated character, the Gruntle, in first work from Murder Hornet

Struggling with customer service? Zoom Contact Center will turn your customers from disgruntled to gruntled, says a new campaign from agency Murder Hornet. But don’t take our word for it—take it from the Gruntle. Developed by animator Eva Cremers, the Gruntle is a cute blue animated blob who’s the new face of marketing efforts for the Zoom Contact Center. The campaign launched with digital video and display in January and will expand to others channels later in the year. Zoom Contact Center is a fully integrated cloud-enabled contact center suite that helps companies deliver more personalized, seamless customer experiences across voice, chat, SMS and video. The Gruntle is a personification of the positive experiences that Zoom is promising through the Contact Center. “Zoom Contact Center makes technology work for your people instead of the other way around and, together with our Zoom clients, we found a creative and unique way to say just that,” said Alexandra McInnis, account lead at Murder Hornet. “Our key insight at the core of the campaign was that customer service has long been a disconnected system that leads to managers, service agents and customers leaving the experience disgruntled,” said Ben Torres Ezrick, Zoom’s head of brand marketing. “At Zoom, we are committed to delivering happiness to our customers, and Murder Hornet was able to demonstrate how Zoom’s innovative Contact Center technology could deliver on that brand promise in a unique way.” Cremers told Ad Age that coming up with the Gruntle character was a joyous process. “They came to me for my general character work being playful and energetic and they had a few reference pieces from my archives that caught their eye,” she said. “Using those as a jumping point, I delved into a collaborative character development and refinement phase with them, taking into account their campaign messaging, target audience, brand guidelines and the way the character needed to deliver an animated performance. From that, we created a more bespoke update on a character they had loved. Absolutely enjoyed the process and loving the playful outcome!”

Zoom introduces animated character, the Gruntle, in first work from Murder Hornet

Featured Stories