Helix: Unifying Global Brands for Accelerated Commerce and Digital Growth
ACCO Brands
The Value
The C2 Group led a monumental digital transformation for ACCO Brands through the strategic implementation of the Helix program. ACCO achieved a unified content and commerce solution that has fundamentally altered its online experience and accelerated revenue growth across its extensive portfolio of over 20 market-leading brands. This partnership delivered a staggering 260% surge in average order values (AOV) for some brands, 17% growth in overall e-commerce sales year-over-year, and over $1 million in direct order intake within the first year. C2 enabled ACCO to launch fully integrated e-commerce solutions for new brands in as little as 60-90 days, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on development.
260%
AOV
The Challenge
ACCO Brands faced a significant digital dilemma: its vast ecosystem of market-leading brands was supported by an amalgam of dissimilar and aging online platforms. This fragmentation created substantial friction for both its diverse customer base (serving both B2B and B2C audiences) and its internal teams.
Siloed data and redundant brand and product websites made it incredibly difficult to present a unified brand image and cross-promote ACCO's full portfolio effectively. Furthermore, the websites lacked the common, expected e-commerce functionalities, such as customer account creation, viewing account-based pricing, and accessing purchase history, which are now standard expectations for online users. Internally, simple content updates or experience tailoring required direct IT intervention, as the outdated platforms lacked user-friendly content management features.
The prospect of bespoke, one-off e-commerce implementations for each brand would incur immense development timelines and prohibitive capital investment, threatening ACCO's ability to scale quickly and meet its ambitious growth objectives in a fundamentally altered digital marketplace.
The Outcome
The C2 Group partnered with ACCO to devise and execute a comprehensive e-commerce strategy, culminating in the creation and implementation of Helix. Playing off the concept of genetic code, Helix symbolizes ACCO's commitment to making digital core to its business strategy.
The solution encompassed:
- Strategic Planning & Platform Consolidation: An initial planning sprint solidified the strategy and business requirements. The chosen platform, Optimizely DXP, provided ACCO with a powerful opportunity to simplify its entire marketing and e-commerce technology stack. This move significantly reduced expenses by eliminating redundant platforms and successfully united all brands on a common, robust content and commerce solution.
- Reusable Digital Framework: Helix leverages a sophisticated design system, including style libraries and Atomic Design principles, paired with a shared, reusable code base. This foundation of templates, blocks, and integrations drastically reduces development time and dramatically increases speed to market for new brand sites.
- Rapid Brand Rollout: New brand sites, complete with optimized product pages, streamlined checkout experiences, compelling brand storytelling pages, and essential integrations (PIM, ERP, payment gateway, fraud protection, tax, transactional email, user-generated content), can now be launched in as soon as 60-90 days from kickoff. This agility saves hundreds of thousands of dollars per brand on development scope.
- Empowered Internal Teams & Enhanced User Experience: The user-friendly Optimizely platform empowers ACCO's brand teams to manage and update site content without constant IT intervention, fostering greater autonomy and efficiency. It also includes powerful personalization and visitor intelligence capabilities, allowing ACCO to tailor experiences for end-users across both B2B and B2C audiences.
- Parallel Implementations: The e-commerce implementation ran seamlessly in parallel with critical PIM and ERP system integrations, ensuring a holistic and synchronized digital transformation.
To date, 16 market-leading brands have successfully launched within the Helix program, including Kensington, Mead, Swingline, and GBC, consistently delivering superior online experiences and driving significant revenue growth across the ACCO Brands portfolio.
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