What is a brand? What does it mean to consumers? To employees? It’s a thing that must remain consistent in some ways, yet must also be constantly shifting and recalibrating in others. It can’t become something regarded cynically – it has to be a sort of beacon of intent and integrity. A company’s brand is the same thing as a person’s word: it’s an ethereal concept based largely on trust.
But how do you retune a brand when that time inevitably comes? How do you guarantee that you’re improving an already accepted standard? How do you avoid becoming the next New Coke (which is due for a nostalgic resurgence any day now, btw)? Here’s how a few companies are handling that very thing.
Can you tell us a little bit about your rebrand?
Curative was one of the first COVID-19 companies in the United States to offer accessible and scalable mass COVID-19 testing. We’ve built a strong brand in the diagnostic industry as a company that prioritizes patient experience and community-based partnerships, demonstrating our commitment to equitable health outcomes. Now, we’re expanding on that commitment by tackling the health care industry in the United States — with transparent, cost-effective, and people-first insurance, starting first in Austin, where we’ve worked throughout the pandemic. Curative is the first large-group insurance carrier to successfully enter the Texas market in several decades. The Curative plan will be available as an option to employers with 51 or more employees in the Austin metro area (first in Travis and Williamson counties). Curative will continue to announce new launch cities in other areas of Texas as part of its strategic phased approach, with additional states coming thereafter.With an annual baseline visit, Curative plan members will only pay one competitive monthly premium and then will receive free and unlimited access to care.
What are the current or future cultural developments behind your rebranding?
We have begun a quest to drastically remake the United States’ healthcare system in a post-pandemic world by launching a health insurance plan that delivers full cost transparency, breaks down unnecessary barriers to care, and offers exceptional customer service – ultimately encouraging our members to actively participate in their own personal health journey. We started by working with communities to meet their healthcare needs — and as we expand our brand, we will reaffirm our commitment to building healthy communities through positive patient experiences. Additional healthcare costs like copays, deductibles, and out-of-pocket maximums disincentivize people from getting the care they need when they need it, which can result in more adverse long-term health outcomes. While these added costs generate significant medical debt for patients, they make very little difference to the bottom line for insurers – which is why we can eliminate them altogether with in-network care geared around total well-being and whole-person health. Imagine a healthcare plan that not only gets to know
you, but actually cares about you and your future health and well-being. That’s what Curative’s people-first plan is all about.
Check Out Curative’s Careers Page Here!
Can you tell us a little bit about your rebrand?
In June 2021 we announced our evolution from Reed Exhibitions to RX, refreshing our visual identity and brand positioning. The new brand identity is symbolic of the changing nature of our wonderfully diverse events business. RX had been our internal shorthand for a while, so it was an easy shift to adopt and embrace it as part of our refreshed brand identity. Our rebrand united our event brands, geographies and teams under a common purpose and our renewed culture has inclusion and diversity at its core.
What are the current or future cultural developments behind your rebranding?
Our refreshed brand identity and proposition unites the organisation behind a higher-level purpose that embraces our digital transformation together with the face-to-face interactions that our events deliver. These innovative interactions create better livelihoods for our customers and better experiences for our audiences to connect both in person or virtually, and they also offer better careers for our people. To make a positive impact on society and our customer we need to be fully committed to an inclusive work environment and that is at the epicentre of everything we do. Our new brand positioning is about being in the business of building businesses and enabling everyone to thrive whoever and wherever they are. At the same time as our rebrand, we also embedded a new NIMBLE (Networked, Inclusive, Magical, Brave, Love of Learning, Entrepreneurial) culture code within RX, highlighting the key behaviours that will make both our business and RXers successful in future.
Check Out RX’s Careers Page Here!
Can you tell us a little bit about your rebrand?
Until late last year, we took pride in being the best kept secret in fintech. Prior to announcing our Series D funding round in August 2021, we intentionally kept a low profile and focused on what we did best – connecting people with their passions by bringing speed, ease, and accessibility to the buying experience for lifestyle purchases.Yet as our business grew exponentially, we needed to rapidly build our team to continue supporting our customers and our 4,000+ dealer- and 30+ Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) partners with innovative digital tools and best-in-class service. We began sharing the many things that made Octane a great place to work: being a remote-first company that prioritizes personal growth, work-life balance, and a diverse and inclusive workplace. We also began to highlight the experiences of our nearly 600 employees, empowering them to describe life at Octane in their own words to reflect our employee-centric approach. At the same time, we wanted to ensure our brand emphasized the unique aspects of our business. Octane makes buying better by combining cutting-edge technology with a human touch. We wanted our brand to be relevant and engaging both when showcasing our proprietary risk models that leverage AI as well as the superior, personal service our Sales, Operations, and Servicing teams provide to our partners and customers. We shifted our tone of voice to being conversational and customer-centric. We also refined our visual approach to use inviting, bold colors and engaging fonts to reflect our constant innovation and drew from the rich imagery of outdoor recreation. Our refreshed brand deeply resonated with prospective employees, partners, customers, and investors. We doubled the size of our engineering team in just three months and grew our overall headcount by 80% in 2021. And in 2022, we achieved record-breaking success in our business, signed new partnerships with leading OEM partners, closed our two largest asset-backed securitizations to-date, and grew fundings in our consumer channel by 80%.
What are the current or future cultural developments behind your rebranding?
When we were founded in 2014, we focused on the Powersports market, which had a distinctive audience. Over time, we expanded into new markets; we started with zero-turn mowers in 2018 then added tractors and trailers in 2022, with another market on the way. As our target addressable market grew to $40B, we wanted to make sure our brand resonated with partners and customers both inside and outside of Powersports. As such, we began to leverage more vehicle agonistic imagery that still highlighted the thrill of spending time outdoors.We also launched a number of new products on our journey to transform e-commerce. As a result, we began taking a more tech-centric approach to our brand. For instance, we began integrating technology into our marketing collateral for dealerships, like incorporating QR codes into vehicle hang tags and window clings so customers can instantly prequalify for financing (without hurting their credit) while browsing the showroom floor. Additionally, despite acquiring the leading enthusiast publications in the space in 2020 – seven renowned editorial brands including UTV Driver and Cycle World – many of our dealer and OEM partners didn’t know about the connection. As a result, we’ve started to leverage these incredible assets. For instance, we continued Cycle World’s commitment to motorcycle racing by sponsoring Michael Gilbert and the Cycle World powered by Octane racing team and inviting dealers to attend races as our guests. We also held a sweepstakes for dealers to go behind the scenes with the UTV Driver editorial team, experience riding in Windrock Park, and appear in an upcoming issue of the publication. We also began adding our soft-pull prequalification tool to articles in our publications. Now enthusiasts who see a vehicle in Cycle World or UTV Driver can understand their buying power without hurting their credit and easily find a dealership where they can purchase the unit. This tech play helps us deliver a better experience from inspiration to purchase to outstanding service through the life of a loan and truly bring our brand to life.
Check Out Octane’s Careers Page Here!
Can you tell us a little bit about your rebrand?
Earlier in 2022, we researched our best cultural strengths to determine what makes First Merchants Bank different and better than many bigger banks. This branding effort focused our marketing efforts on how we effectively meet a key universal need across all service channels used by customers. It also effectively answers why people should bank with us instead of other banks. Our brand’s point of difference is now captured by a new tagline indicating how we are different and better in an important way: “Helping you prosper.” Genuinely serving customers this way is what we do to consistently provide a better customer experience. We accomplish it through superior attentiveness when helping customers, making our tagline both believable and true to the reality of banking with us. It is our key brand strength that is compellingly relevant for many people who do not find an attentive relationship at larger banks.
What are the current or future cultural developments behind your rebranding?
Our cultural priority is continuous improvement in being very attentive to both customers and teammates so that our mission and tagline are truthful, real, and make a positive impact on the people we serve—no matter what their banking needs may be. In consumer banking, we are attentive to customers’ needs with a welcoming spirit from bankers who have the skills and tools to be dependable financial guides. In commercial banking, we serve customers attentively with very accessible bankers who are adaptive to the specific situations and circumstances businesses face. In wealth management and financial planning, we are attentive to every client’s unique set of goals and needs so we deliver conscientiously adaptive solutions throughout the client’s lifetime. At all levels and in all situations, we prioritize customer attentiveness, authentically delivering the right products and services for their individual needs.
