How Paramount Citrus sweetened its appeal in the marketplace
Paramount Citrus is North America’s largest grower, packer and distributor of oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit. For years, Paramount was the largest member of the Sunkist marketing cooperative. Their contribution to the food chain went unrecognized as the produce from their orchards went to market under the Sunkist label.
In 2006, Paramount left the cooperative to market its citrus under its own brand. For the move to be a success and the company to be able to capitalize on growth opportunities, it was important that Paramount be seen as making a clean break from Sunkist and carve out its own distinct niche.
Bringing the sunshine in
Having previously operated “under the radar,” the company now had to make a memorable first impression to grab the attention of retailers and consumers. Paramount reached out to the LA office of Tenet Partners and our team of design strategists. This collaboration gave birth to a logo that brings together everything positive associated with citrus: freshness, the outdoors and the sun.
To complement the new logo, Tenet injected humor and humanity into the design of the launch packaging. Consumers were treated to portraits of Paramount employees enjoying and reacting to the flavor of the citrus (sweet oranges, tart lemons). This established a clear and genuine link to the consumer experience.
Strengthening the ties that bind
Tenet’s designers gave Paramount a new graphic language with which to create continuity across the company’s full line of products. The system could be extended to everything from “fancy fruit” labels, to “choice” citrus, to redesigned export packaging for product lines that have been around for decades.
Today, Paramount Citrus can be found across the world, as the company continues to grow and make its way to more and more retailers and homes.
How Matrix Service Company assumed the leadership to drive stellar growth
Every day, millions of us see vitally important things to which we seldom give a second thought – storage tanks, power plants, refineries, industrial plants, mining operations. Enormous investments are being made in these critical parts of North America’s infrastructure. This is reshaping the entire U.S. energy sector and having a profound effect on the economy, all adding up to creating enormous opportunity for those positioned to take advantage.
Planning for powerful growth
When this mid-sized construction and servicing firm brought in a new CEO, the die was cast: Matrix would pursue an aggressive growth strategy, aiming to double the business over five years. Timing couldn’t have been better for this new strategic vision, coinciding with the beginning of the energy boom that’s made the United States one of the world’s leading producers of oil and natural gas.
The company’s leadership saw opportunity in cross-selling among its diverse businesses, acquiring new customers and making strategic acquisitions. But Matrix knew it would have to change the way it goes to market if it was to take share from larger, more entrenched competitors and attract the new talent needed to achieve its goals. Tenet Partners was tapped to help Matrix transform its vision into reality.
Matrix owns numerous businesses across North America that serve a wide array of customers – diverse businesses, diverse market needs, and diverse workforce, both unionized and non-union (or “merit”) labor. With its origins in the oil and gas industry and aboveground storage tanks, the company, over time, branched out into areas as diverse as engineering services, utilities, industrial infrastructure and mining. The result was a portfolio of strong and proud, but separate, brands.
A unified, yet diverse, enterprise
Tenet Partners, utilizing our integrated approach to brand development, quickly created a strategic brand platform that highlighted the strengths shared by all Matrix businesses: outstanding client relationship management, a strong culture of safety, quality of service and the flexibility that comes from being “right-sized” for its clients.
The other side of the strategic coin was a consolidated brand architecture that simplified and unified the company, without diluting the distinct value of its separate businesses. Tenet strategists found a way to communicate Matrix’s ability to serve both union and merit markets across the continent, retain existing brand equity and elevate its high-quality engineering competencies.
Putting people at the center of the strategy
Tenet’s team of strategists, content marketers, designers and digital experts came together to guide the Matrix brand expression in a new direction.
The team encouraged Matrix leaders to embrace a bold new visual and verbal language, crafted to highlight Matrix strengths. The dated logo was replaced with a strong, stylized mark that unifies the brand, while using color to differentiate the various businesses. The human element and strong relationships for which Matrix is known are communicated through people-focused imagery and a confident, emotive editorial voice.
In parallel, our digital team developed a comprehensive, user-focused digital strategy designed to take Matrix into the future by facilitating mobile access and interaction, for both clients and potential employees. We created an innovative responsive design, providing a seamless experience across desktop, tablet and mobile phones.
Setting course for the future
To be effective, a major brand transition like this one has to be rolled out with care. To ensure successful buy-in across the board, Tenet Partners and Matrix worked closely together to frame and execute a comprehensive launch program. Everyone touched by the new brand were part of the launch – executives, managers, general employees, sales and marketing teams, clients, union halls, partners and the investment community. A new value creation story was crafted for shareholders, existing customers were assured of continuity and Matrix team members were given an inspiring new flag and brand story around which to rally.
The results? Today, Matrix is well on its way to meeting its ambitious growth targets, with a new brand that will serve it well for many years to come.
A healthy brand feeds pharmaceutical and biotechnology development
Developing a brand for Catalent Pharma Solutions in short time, without sacrificing a strategy for long-term growth
When The Blackstone Group, a premier global investment and advisory firm, announced the acquisition of Cardinal Health’s Pharmaceutical Technology & Services (PTS) division in January 2007, the newly acquired company had only four months to stop using the Cardinal brand. Starting out with nearly $2 billion in revenue and more than 10,000 employees around the world, the company needed a global brand to represent a “new” company with its substantial history of innovation and achievement.
To get to the core idea that could unify and motivate everyone in the organization, brand strategists at Tenet Partners talked to both internal and external stakeholders around the world – from the president to the technicians in the lab. But with the compressed timeline to develop a new brand, we needed to re-think our typical process. Strategy, naming and identity development happened in a dynamic and co-creative environment, with our staff working closely with the new company’s launch team to nail the foundation for the new company. The brand platform Tenet created expressed the company’s commitment to unlocking the potential of medicines. The new name and logo were inspired by Catalent’s pride in their role as catalyst for their customers’ success and advances in pharmaceutical and biotechnology development.
Within seven years after launch, Catalent’s customer-focused strategy helped them become the world’s number one drug development, delivery and supply partner for pharmaceutical, biologics and consumer health products. In July of 2014, just seven years later, Catalent successfully launched an $871 million IPO. That’s good medicine.
How Legrand supercharged growth across its North American business portfolio
Legrand, a leading French supplier of electrical components and networking solutions, had acquired, over time, seven businesses in North America. Each one a storied commercial brand – names like Pass & Seymour, Wiremold and Ortronics. The seven units were discrete, not clearly tied to the Legrand parent.
While the company had achieved good returns on its investments, the CEO, John Selldorff, wanted to take the company Legrand to a new level. His vision: to improve its market position and fuel growth across multiple business units and product lines.
Centering on the customer
The journey, however, was a challenging one. Legrand faced structural issues in its brand portfolio, channels and sales. The Legrand brand itself was relatively weak in the North American market. From the outside, the various businesses looked and operated like different companies. The customer experience across channels was disjointed.
Tenet Partners was brought on board to help the company pursue its mission of building a new, customer-focused brand platform. That would involve optimizing the brand portfolio in the context of customer experience, positioning Legrand for the future and articulating new value propositions to sales channel partners, influencers and end customers.
Using a brand-led approach for framing Legrand’s business strategy and activating organizational change, our team of strategists acted as a catalyst to lead the transformation.
A 360° view of the brand
To uncover innovation opportunities, Tenet conducted extensive qualitative and quantitative research with external audiences. Our teams met with distributors, contractors, specifiers and end customers in commercial and retail markets. The goal: to fully understand perceptions, customer experiences and identify unmet needs. This provided a solid grasp of the brand.
The external research was paired with several months of internal collaboration. A series of co-creation workshops offered the opportunity to dive deep with Legrand teams, spanning all areas and levels of the company. These workshops helped craft and evaluate options, frame recommendations and define future projects.
The outcome was a simple but powerful strategic approach:
The company would unite under the Legrand master brand.
Five of the seven existing companies were de-branded and their names applied to their product lines.
The remaining two brands were retained as separate business units to address discrete specialty markets and customer segments.
Capturing the essence – and promise – of Legrand
Realigning the brand portfolio was a huge step forward for Legrand. Finding a way to telegraph its importance was next on the list.
A new brand promise, Designed to be better, served as the internal rallying cry and codified the value that employees deliver in all their efforts. This differentiated brand promise and Legrand’s emphasis on customer experience underscored how success was going to be achieved.
For customers, the promise encapsulated the value of Legrand products and solutions into a single expression. The company is positioned as the provider of highly functional technology and aesthetically pleasing design treatments for the office and home.
Success comes from clarity of purpose
Legrand’s customer experience-focused repositioning program illustrates how brand serves as a powerful leadership tool. It’s been lauded by management as instrumental to their remarkable accomplishments in the years following the launch.
Since the program went live, Legrand has taken significant market share in the commercial and residential construction markets. It has also gained the confidence to open up new markets focused on technology.
Being clear about who you are, what your company promises and guiding everyone towards a shared vision is what helped Legrand create competitive advantage, connect with customers and drive growth.
Arms full of groceries and goods, a shopper steps up in the checkout line with a Mastercard card in hand. But rather than swiping the card to pay for purchases, the shopper taps his card on a point-of-sale terminal reader. In 2003, this contactless payment represented a huge advance in payment technology. American Express and Visa were already in the market with their versions. Mastercard needed an identifier for their version of new “contactless“ payment with an identity for its feature that provides cardholders with a simpler way to pay. By tapping the payment card on a point-of-sale reader rather than swiping or inserting the card, Mastercard was improving the overall shopping experience.
First and foremost, the identity had to say what the technology did. One way to do that was to use a globally understood icon: the four-line “broadcasting“ wave that could indicate their payment card works as contactless, able to be read by simply waving it near a terminal with a matching symbol. Mastercard was not satisfied with simply fitting in the category. It wanted to stand out from the others.
The new identity also needed to work within the Mastercard Brand Architecture system. With Mastercard’s global reach, the company turned to Tenet Partners to develop tools for managing and implementing the new product brand.
Working with Mastercard management, Tenet successfully developed an identity for Mastercard PayPass™ that was thoroughly tested and launched in the summer of 2005. Testament to its success, the program is still in use today.
The number of merchants accepting and financial institutions participating in the Mastercard PayPass™ program has grown at a rapid pace. Through our Brand Center management, Mastercard can efficiently supply its partners with artwork and usage standards for the proper implementation and management of the Mastercard PayPass™ identity. The results: the power for Mastercard to maximize its visual presence to its targeted audiences.
Rockwell Collins honors its heritage while looking to the future
Innovation marks a company’s ability to sustain competitive advantage and market leadership. Without question, Rockwell Collins enjoys a reputation as one of the most future-focused companies in the world. More precisely, Rockwell Collins is known for innovation that performs in the most demanding applications without fail. From its participation in the space program in the 1960s to designing the most advanced avionics and communication systems in use today, Rockwell Collins is the brand that customers charged with delivering critical missions count on.
Defining independence
While its history is worthy of celebration, it also presented an interesting dilemma for Rockwell Collins as it sought to clarify and strengthen its identity after spinning out of the conglomerate, Rockwell International. The Rockwell and Collins names are deeply embedded in the history of America’s aerospace and communications equipment industries – each with a powerful legacy and a source of great individual pride. Unfortunately, these strong brand names kept the combined Rockwell Collins from seeing itself as one entity.
When heritage meets innovation for the benefit of customers
Starting with a deep look at the business and research with customers, investors, employees and other key audiences, the Tenet team guided management as they made the choice to keep the name for the company, embark on a new strategic positioning and innovate its brand to achieve future growth ambitions.
Tenet reaffirmed and articulated the Rockwell Collins brand attributes: a heritage founded on reliability, a continuous drive toward innovation and a relentless commitment to building strong customer relationships. The brand promise, Building trust every day, conveyed a clear sense of purpose. Together with a bold new word-mark, dynamic visual and verbal identity, website, and brand engagement programs, the stage was set for a reinvigorated culture and market momentum.
With confidence and revitalized energy, Rockwell Collins was ready to move forward. That’s reflected by its rapid ascent as one of the most admired and best performing companies in America.
Preparing for the 2017 Paris Air Show
The bi-yearly Paris Air Show provides the biggest audience of OEM and manufacturers of commercial and military systems. In 2017, the show offered a prime opportunity to position Rockwell Collins as the leading provider of solutions that span the entire aircraft, given their recent acquisition of B/E Aerospace. It was an important venue to show the full cockpit-to- cabin expertise of Rockwell Collins, and to position the company as innovative and forward-thinking.
Tenet Partners created a common theme for all media surrounding the Paris Air Show that captured the spirit of innovation from Rockwell Collins: “See the future from here.”
To maximize the power of a consistent message, Tenet mapped visitors’ journey along the path of their potential media exposure bought by Rockwell Collins. Next, we produced digital ads to cover wraps and ads in aircraft industry magazines, air show billboards and ultimately the entire Rockwell Collins chalet, from inside video to outside signage. Rockwell Collins’ signature color identity and evocative skyscape imagery were used across all visuals.
Kelly Ortberg, CEO of Rockwell Collins, said, “It’s the best Rockwell Collins has ever looked.”
How American Century Investments stays connected to its customers
American Century Investments has grown from a small mutual fund manager in 1958 to a multi-disciplined, global asset management firm, managing over $140 billion in assets. With this evolution came the need to develop a corporate brand strategy that tied all of its business channels and diverse investment offerings together and communicate its combined value to a broad customer base. Each channel was managed independently, resulting in inconsistent visual identities and conflicting product and company information.
Consistency vs. differentiation: a balancing act
American Century worked with Tenet Partners to create a values-based, unifying brand platform. At the same time, given the varying needs of market segments American Century serves, we developed differentiated communications systems for each business channel, built upon a shared visual identity. This enabled the company to have a stronger corporate presence while allowing for some individual expression for its targeted offerings.
Part of this initiative was a name change and identity refinement. By adding “Investments” to the communicative name, we helped the company achieve clarity of message to all audiences. As web and mobile banking took off, we optimized the identity to create a consistent experience across all platforms and devices.
The new brand platform inspired a company-wide effort to integrate business processes, and product and company information across all channels. The firm comprehensively addressed every customer touchpoint, from print and television advertising, to the web, marketing communications and investor communications.
Empire State Pride Agenda renews its call for LGBT rights
Tenet Partners worked to extend the reach of the organization to potential donors who make up the majority of the Pride Agenda’s audience. Appealing to them called for a brand that is human, that feels and acts more modern.
The Empire State Pride Agenda is New York’s statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights and advocacy group. Its mission is to win equality and justice for all LGBT New Yorkers and their families. Since its founding in 1990, the organization has won many victories at both the local and state level.
For years, the Pride Agenda had been at the forefront of efforts to pass legislation guaranteeing all New Yorkers the right to marry. While celebrating this milestone, the organization had to face new challenges. With marriage equality now legal in the state of New York, donation rates were falling off. This was especially true among smaller and midsized donors, who felt that their goals had been achieved despite a number of human rights issues yet to be addressed.
Borrowing a page from grassroots campaigns
In the world of nonprofits, 2008 was a landmark year. The Obama presidential campaign showed the power of grassroots support, especially when targeted at tech-savvy, issue-conscious people. That campaign changed the way many fundraising organizations view the world, shifting the emphasis towards broader engagement.
For the Pride Agenda, this trend pointed the way to a solution for its fundraising issue. A decision was made to revitalize the organization’s image and highlight its diversity, in order to better connect with the grassroots audience.
Creating a fresh, modern and relatable brand
Together, Pride Agenda leaders and our team of brand designers and digital strategists worked to extend the reach of the organization to potential donors who make up the majority of the Pride Agenda’s audience, people who are not used to being politically active. Appealing to them called for a brand that looks, feels and acts more modern – a departure for an organization that had been around a long time and was well known in political circles.
With new audiences come new channels of communication. A key aspect of the new engagement strategy was its emphasis on digital marketing and interaction. The grassroots audience relies heavily on mobile devices and the Internet to get information and interact, so the new brand had to work exceptionally well in that world.
Two entities, one seamless experience
The Empire State Pride Agenda has two arms – a 501c4 lobbying group, and a 501c3 nonprofit (the Empire State Pride Agenda Foundation). These must remain separate by law. However, the Pride Agenda’s new engagement strategy, which is based on a seamless, inclusive 360-degree experience, called for a way to show both equally.
Tenet worked with Pride Agenda executives and counsel to find a path that solved the strategic marketing challenge while being legally sound. The result is an innovative design approach where both groups of the organization share a brand expression, but are clearly distinguished through design, with separate color palettes for each.
The two-part tagline – Igniting Equality. Advancing Justice. – serves as wayfinding with one part leading to the nonprofit foundation, while the other acts as a path to the lobbying group.
By creating a discrete-yet-unified experience, visitors to the website understand the full breadth of the Pride Agenda, its goals and how they can get involved to support its mission.
The human faces of pride
To bring the new brand to life, the Pride Agenda also partnered with Tenet to create a diverse range of launch activities that put its constituents at the center of the new brand. And to prepare for the transformation about to happen, Tenet conducted brand behavior training for all Pride Agenda employees to empower them to live the new brand on day one.
Excitement started building with the “Faces of Pride” public relations campaign and photo shoots opened to the public in New York City as well as upstate New York. Professional photographers donated their time and talent to take portraits of members and supporters of the LGBT community. An invitation was broadcast via email and social media. The result was thousands of emotional images that highlight what the Pride Agenda is all about. The richly diverse portraits are all about the human connection – that elusive element of a successful brand that goes beyond strategy and design.
New momentum for the work still to come
The revitalized brand met the three main goals the Empire State Pride Agenda set when it began its rebranding journey. It boosted awareness of the organization, increased donations, and brought new energy to grassroots fundraising. It also accomplished something more far-reaching. The brand focuses the LGBT discussion on people, establishing the issues as human rights that deserve a place in mainstream political and social discourse.
Giving a powerful voice to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities
The Arc captures its spirit of inclusion and opportunity with a dynamic new brand
The Arc is the nation’s oldest and largest charitable organizations dedicated to the needs of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). With a 60-year history of advocacy promoting inclusion and opportunity, The Arc plays a key role in the lives of people with I/DD.
While The Arc has earned an enviable spot as one of the United States’ 10 largest charitable organizations, it is, at its heart, a community-based movement. It started as a small group of parents and concerned individuals, some of them with I/DD, coming together to change mindsets at a time when little was known about intellectual disability and institutionalization was common. In the years since, the organization has grown significantly and today is made up of more than 720 state and local chapters.
The power of a unifying idea
The Arc’s structure is one of its great strengths. Its focus on grassroots initiatives highlights the efforts and energy of members on the front lines – many of whom are family members personally touched by I/DD. With chapters being staunchly independent, the unplanned tradeoff was the absence of a core identity around which to rally the membership and build awareness with the general public.
The Arc called on Tenet Partners to craft a new brand that would help communicate the organization’s message more clearly and realize its full potential for societal change. Tenet brand strategists and designers worked with The Arc’s leaders to develop a new logo and tagline, along with brand guidelines. The team’s work yielded a dynamic brand expression reflective of The Arc’s embracing nature and passionate history. At the same time, the new brand brings a burst of energy that symbolizes independence and the spark of individuality.
Communicating the combined energy of The Arc
For an organization as widespread and diverse as The Arc, it was essential to involve chapters and members everywhere in the brand launch. To capture their spirit and promote the work they do at the local level, Tenet created a series of video testimonials featuring advocates and families affected by I/DD. The network of chapters was also invited to participate in an extensive series of webinars, national conferences and seminars, all designed to reaffirm the organization’s mission and bring people together around shared values.
Today, the entire organization has come together under one umbrella, building a strong presence nationwide. The broad adoption of the new, single identity unifies all of the chapters, amplifying their voice to communicate The Arc’s societal mission with more lasting impact than ever before.
Celebrating our partnership
In recognition of our support of their rebranding efforts, Tenet Partners was honored with The Arc’s President’s Award. This award, granted annually by the The Arc, allows the national charity to express its gratitude to those whose work made a positive impact upon the organization and its future.
How Alaskan Brewing Co. captures top-shelf attention
The story of Alaskan Brewing Co. really embodies the independent spirit and can-do attitude of a state that calls itself “The Last Frontier.” In the mid-80s, Marcy and Geoff Larson fell in love with the place, but had to find a way to support themselves – no small feat in Alaska. Geoff was a home brewer, and a friend suggested they start a brewery. “Other than the extreme financial and logistical challenges, we couldn’t think of why not,” the couple says.
While researching, Marcy found an eight-decade-old set of brewery records, listing ingredients and a recipe. That became Alaskan’s first product, Alaskan Amber. The start of the company was humble – Geoff, Marcy and 10 volunteers packing the first 253 cases in the winter of 1986. Since then, the spirit of Alaskan Brewing Co. has triumphed. The company has grown to become one of the most award-winning craft breweries in the history of the Great American Beer Festival, and now distributes to 17 states.
Success and growth brings change. That can sometimes dilute a strong brand like Alaskan’s. The evolution of the company’s products resulted in somewhat of a misalignment in brand expression as reflected in a wide array of logos, print communications and package designs.
Recognizing that its brand, packaging and marketing must reflect the consistency and quality of the beer in the bottle, Alaskan reached out to Tenet Partners to help strengthen its identity. The company sought to re-emphasize its origins – the core values of local community, quality and fun that led to its success. At the same time, the brand needed to stay relevant in today’s changing and expanding marketplace.
For a company like Alaskan, getting the total customer experience right is essential. Each touch point matters. Packaging, imagery, textures, voice… all are part of the brand expression and they leave a lasting impression.
As a starting point for in-depth strategic discussions, Tenet audited Alaskan’s existing communications and packaging to uncover areas for refinement. The way forward became clear: keep enough of the existing brand elements intact so that loyal customers would not be confused or deterred, yet modernize the brand enough to attract the younger target audience.
A clear, thoughtful strategic direction is critical to success when rebuilding an established brand. The leadership at Alaskan Brewing Co. knew that, in order to achieve its goals, it would have to do more than engage in a design exercise.
Extensive discussions helped Tenet and Alaskan fully understand and capture the essence of the brand. Together, the teams developed key strategic elements – positioning, personality attributes and brand promise – that would become the foundation of a revitalized expression. This strategy informed the work of the design strategists at Tenet and translated into a refreshed visual identity energized by a bold typographic language and a distinct combination of textural and product imagery.
Tenet’s design recommendations have a singular goal: generate greater brand recognition and shelf presence for Alaskan by unifying all touch points, from marketing materials to promotions to packaging.
The strategy-infused design proved highly successful and helped propel Alaskan Brewing Co. forward. It was also the start of what has become an ongoing, collaborative relationship. Today, Tenet continues to be Alaskan’s trusted advisor, helping the company fulfill its vision of becoming a market leader in the craft brewing industry.
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