Activating a Community of Science
At Southern Research, I led one of the organization's most significant brand transformations, repositioning a nationally recognized research institution for its next era of growth. The initiative extended well beyond a new identity to include strategic positioning, messaging, digital transformation, executive communications and an integrated launch strategy that activated employees, partners, government stakeholders and commercial partners around a unified vision. Some key campaign elements:
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This rebrand required more than just a refreshed logo mark and colors. We sought to preserve the institution’s rich legacy of scientific and healthcare advancements, while creating a modern, forward-looking brand that distilled our reason for being and speak to research partners and patient stakeholders alike.
We embarked on extensive market research into our existing brand equity and opportunities for growth, leveraging stakeholder engagement, surveys, focus groups, A/B testing, and other 360-degree feedback.
The result was a new brand story that paid homage to our history through a modern lens, that was build by and for our community of science.
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The renewed brand identity offered opportunities to tell our story in innovative, emotive ways. We dialed up our media earned and owned strategy to showcase our local and regional impact, our contributions to science and global healthcare, and the organization’s renaissance.
Additionally, we implemented a multi-layered approach to scientific presentations and professional speaking engagements, ensuring that contributors at every layer of the organization were engaged in thought leadership activities.
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We created an integrated marketing strategy underpinning the rebrand, translating the new brand identity into omni-channel campaigns across digital, media, content, events and executive communications to drive adoption and market awareness. This included a full web rebuild, strategic ad buys, a refresh of all sales enablement materials, and a 5-figure scientific conference strategy.
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The organization had recently undergone a full C-Suite transition and divested from a core business line, so employee trust, morale and psychological safety was at an all time low.
We needed a change management strategy to build our company culture and ensure the new brand embodiment could be activated and amplified across every layer of the organization. Enterprise transformation initiatives helped align executive leadership, employees and external stakeholders around our renewed vision and accelerated the adoption of the new brand.
Internal communications elements included a full intranet rebuild, implementation of a new ERP, town halls, fireside chats, leadership training, culture initiatives and pulse surveys and other two-way feedback tools, core values campaigns, employee engagement events, training and manager toolkits.
SELECT RESULTS
Branding That Grew With Us
The new brand offered storytelling opportunities that not only engaged the community, but positioned the organization to better compete for funding, partnerships, talent and commercial opportunities through a more compelling market presence. As a result, we raised $125m in direct funding and state support.
High Impact Media Placements
By securing more than 1,000 high value placements in the first 12 months, (including Tier 1 and key regional publications), we expanded our share of voice to highlight our innovation, research and community impact.
Marketing Performance
We established scalable marketing frameworks that will continue supporting organizational growth beyond the initial launch. Immediate impacts included a 60% increase in website traffic, 30% increase in conversion rate on key calls-to-action and 10x growth in organic search traffic.
Delivering Organizational Change
Not only did we achieve 100% adoption of our new brand templates and communication standards within 6 months, we also increased employee confidence in the organization's mission by 35%.