The Goal: One Firm, One Brand
Treanor is organized as eight distinct studios, each serving a different industry. Although this high level of specialization creates tremendous value for clients, it has siloed and fragmented the firm’s message and marketing communications, ultimately diluting the brand.
Treanor tapped Substance151 to develop a unified and authentic brand that would rally employees across all studios and offices around the firm’s core principles while also respecting the individuality of each studio’s expertise, approach and micro-culture.
Brand Research: Deepening Insight at Every Step
Although the internal stakeholder interviews and input sessions emphasized Treanor’s people/relationship-oriented approach and the societal impact of the firm’s work, our initial research, combined with our experience differentiating firms in crowded industries, suggested that neither theme was compelling enough to become the foundation for Treanor’s brand.
The competitive analysis also showed that while competitors’ communications were designed to be emotionally resonant, they actually tapped the emotions of firms’ internal stakeholders rather than prospects and clients. As a result, brand messages and stories told by the vast majority of competitors were not relevant to clients.
Conversations with Treanor’s clients allowed us to test our hypothesis and revealed that although “relationships” are important, when given a choice between “people/relationships,” “impact” and “expertise,” clients want expertise.
Brand Strategy: Achieving Diverse Goals with a Singular Stance
With an accurate picture of Treanor’s audiences’ wants and needs and our expertise in using relevancy as the gateway to emotionally resonant brands, we recommended a brand stance that achieves all of Treanor’s goals.
Differentiating, engaging and strategic, the new brand platform not only captures what makes Treanor unique and what’s most common and compelling among all eight studios, but also aligns employees with the firm’s business strategy: “We want to be perceived as a 10 in expertise and a 10 in design. We can’t go in one direction at the expense of the other.”
Brand Platform
Strategic Brand Position
Architecture at the nexus of proficiency and possibility.
Brand Promise
Reach further.
Value Proposition
Smarter architecture.
Brand Purpose
To design the world we want to live in.
Message Platform: Communicating the Brand Firmwide
Substance151 developed a messaging platform to help Treanor translate the brand strategy into public-facing communications for internal and external audiences, across all firm-wide marketing communications and brand touchpoints.
To ensure internal teams embrace the new brand message, we held working sessions with each studio, providing guidance on how to stay on brand while remaining relevant to their niche audiences. The result was a practical guide tailored to each studio and designed to protect the brand from becoming fragmented.
Creative Execution: Bringing The New Brand to Life
Naming and Brand Identity
With the rebrand focused on overcoming the silos and emerging as “One firm. One brand. One voice.” we recommended removing the “HL” – a legacy of the old merger that doesn’t support the end goal.
We retained the arch – a consistent visual element throughout the history of Treanor’s brand evolution, that is inseparable from the firm’s identity (even Treanor’s intranet is called “The Arch”). We updated the wordmark, making the logo more modern, streamlined, and visually balanced. To allow for more flexibility, we developed a standard for the arch to be used independently from the logo when the context of the brand application is clear.
Color, Typography and Iconography
We refined Treanor’s typographic system, introducing typefaces that are both modern and human.
With the overall almost minimalistic design sensibilities – “editorial” black type in a lot of white space, we extended the red and black color palette to include a few additional accent colors. Used sparingly, they add vibrancy and personality to the overall sophisticated design system – communicating the savvy but personable nature of the firm.
To make sure the firm’s personality shines through, we created a series of icons. The playfulness of icons as a graphic element is balanced by their clean, sophisticated style.
Collateral System and Templates
With eight design studios in multiple offices, Treanor’s collateral needs are very diverse. We developed a comprehensive, modular and flexible design system and marketing templates for applications from proposals to corporate brochures to social media graphics.
Website Redesign
The new website introduces an audience-centric approach to website architecture, modernized design and improved content presentation. It strengthens the firm’s competitive position and showcases its specialized knowledge and expertise. The new website is also central to Treanor’s digital and content marketing efforts, serving as the face of the firm and an effective business development, communications and recruitment tool.
Brand Rollout: Preventing Fallout Common with Change
Although the brand rollout strategy and plan addressed several important objectives, our primary focus was on making sure the studios embrace the new, unified brand with confidence and have the right tools to carry the momentum forward.
Substance151 introduced an internal brand education program designed to build excitement around “one firm, one brand” and activate brand ambassadorship.
The comprehensive external rollout plan strategically bridges the initial launch and future marketing activities, providing Treanor with a clear path for ongoing brand management.
From highly creative yet practical ideas to easy-to-use frameworks and tools, Treanor now has a system for helping employees across all studios and offices to embody and champion the brand. The firm’s leadership and its corporate marketing communications team now have the tools to proactively manage the brand and prevent it from deteriorating over time.
Employee Engagement During Brand Launch
I learned so much throughout this process, and I had the pleasure of working with a fantastic team to make it happen. Thank you to Ida Cheinman and the Substance151 team for making us shine. You handled everything we threw your way thoughtfully and paid attention to what we needed, and it truly gave us something unique to our needs that we can own and carry forward.
Results
After only six months post-rebrand, Treanor streamlined its visual identity across all eight markets, reduced proposal production time by 28%, outperformed its previous website analytics in every metric, and attracted new national and international partners through website messaging. Treanor’s rebrand and website redesign has won several national and global awards.
