Our Pride & Joy
Who We Serve
Our Clients
We haven’t met a client we didn’t like, and we’ve worked with more than a 100 brands in almost every industry. We take on long-term engagements and small projects for Fortune 1000 companies, non-profits, academic institutions, startups, and PR and advertising agencies. If our experience can help define, grow and protect a company, we’re all in. We could talk all day about our work and the clients we feel lucky to serve. Check out some of our clients, work and testimonials below.
Previous experience includes engagements with Amazon, California Avocado Commission, Caruso (corporate, retailers, restaurants and properties), Children’s Hospital Orange County, Coldstone Creamery, Cunard, Disney, Dole, Epson, Farmer John, Kaiser Permanente, Keck/USC Hospital, Kids Space Museum, King’s Hawaiian, Las Vegas Sands, Mattel, Metropolitan Water District, McDonald’s, Nestle, Rosewood Hotels and Resorts, Strategic Hotel Capital, Toyota, Union Bank, University of Redlands, and Yahoo!, among others.
What We Do
Recent Work
Passionate is the word that best describes how we feel about our profession and the excitement we have for client work. Beginning with research that shapes insights, we form strategic plans based on marketplace, competitor and consumer intelligence. Then we get to the fun part – the words and ideas that make our clients stand out in a competitive world and resonate with the stakeholders who matter most to their success and growth. Below are some recent projects close to our hearts.
Helping a Successful Auto Lender Modernize its Brand & Begin an ESG Journey
Situation: After growing into a highly successful national auto finance company, Global Lending Services (GLS) was ready to evolve and elevate its brand as it neared its 10th anniversary, was anticipating rapid growth and a future liquidity event.
Assignment: Serving primarily as a B2B brand, its look and feel was unsophisticated despite the company originating more than $8 billion in consumer loans. With future exponential growth expected in both the B2B (auto dealer, banks, automotive manufacturers) and B2C (direct refis and online via sites such as CarGurus), GLS decided it was time to update its corporate narrative and begin telling an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) story that would be compelling to all stakeholders, including future employees, investors or acquirors.
Strategy: The recommended approach began with a peer research study, qualitative reputational study, and creation of a new brand strategy.
Execution: The work included updating GLS’ mission and values, creating a new vision statement, developing the company’s value proposition and marketplace positioning, crafting the brand personality and voice, designing an updated graphic identity, and articulating a new corporate narrative and corporate message platform. These materials were developed alongside the creation of the company’s ESG story.
Results: GLS’s ESG journey was captured in an inaugural ESG report. And the brand refresh and new way of talking about the company was revealed to both employees and external stakeholders with a sophisticated new website. The new positioning, messaging, and VMV were used to elevate the company’s investor and sales materials.
This brand and website work was led by The Brand Partnership for Financial Profiles, while the ESG work was led by Third Economy.
Crafting a Differentiated Positioning and Marketing for a SoCal B-School
Situation: In a competitive marketplace, the University of Redlands hired The Brand Partnership to do an extensive competitive peer study and help the School of Business identify opportunities to reposition its business program and elevate its marketing.
Brand Strategy: Our work begain with two competitive analyses: business schools located in Southern California and a subset of business schools that offered a master’s in business or data analytics. The work that followed included crafting a new brand positioning, brand pillars, value proposition, value system, key tenets, brand lexicon, key message architecture and overview presentation for the School of Business.
Marketing: Research, competitive positioning, marketing strategy, message development, a new website presence, lead-generation and lead-nurturing email marketing campaigns, digital advertising campaigns, admissions and enrollment collateral, social media, media relations, and enrollment team training for the launch of the new MSBA and existing MBA and MSOL programs.
Developing a Crisis Preparedness Program for 230 K-12 Schools Nationwide
Situation: Spring Education Group hired The Brand Partnership to do an extensive communications audit across 230 schools it had recently acquired to determine marketing and communications best practices, inconsistencies and opportunities, as well as develop a strategic approach and plan for reputation & crisis management.
Comunications Audit & Recommendations: We conducted an extensive audit of parent company and portfolio of 230 schools to determine best practices and opportunities for improvement.
Reputation Management: We conducted a vulnerability audit and developed a detailed scenario-based crisis plan, policies, activation protocol, processes, template media statements, and crisis management and communications tools for the parent company and school leadership to use.
Marketing Communications Team Construct: After interviewing all marketing function team members to understand skillsets, job responsibilities and professional interests, developed a marketing and communications team construct for the addition of a communications leader and team to advance the company’s internal and external communications.
Building the Brand Foundation and Initial Marketing for a New College of Health
Situation: With an understanding of the critical shortages of healthcare workers at all levels across the spectrum of health-related fields, it was an honor to work with the University of La Verne to develop the marketplace positioning and foundational brand elements for the university’s fifth and newest college, the College of Health and Community Well-Being, as well as the brand foundation components for its new School of Nursing and first nursing degree programs.
Strategic Approach: The body of work included one-on-one interviews with cabinet and board members; a competitive peer review of other colleges of health in Southern California, as well as online and on-campus nursing programs; and review of third-party data regarding the changes in healthcare and the role of educational institutions in solving marketplace needs. From there, we developed a differentiated positioning for the College of Health and Community Well-Being and the School of Nursing, as well as vision/mission/values, brand personality and tonality, and the foundational key messages for both the new college, new nursing school, and first degree programs, as part of our foundational brand strategy work.
Execution: In addition to developing the brand strategy and foundational messaging, we developed key materials to strategically launch and differentiate the new college, nursing school, and first new degree program: three new website sections; enrollment and admissions collateral; outreach materials to community colleges, regional healthcare partners and other care providers; a lead-nurturing email marketing campaign; and other advertising and public relations materials. The marketing is underway to build the first nursing cohort for fall 2022 and to roll nine existing undergraduate and graduate degree programs and approximately 1,100 students into the new college before fall 2022.
Our work was the third large project for University of La Verne. Previously, The Brand Partnership conducted the competitive and brand research, positioning, messaging and a full suite of digital and traditional marketing and enrollment materials for the successful launch of the university’s Master of Science in Data Analytics degree.
Strenghtening Employee Engagement through Executive Communications
Situation: There’s never been a more important time to lead with empathy, purpose and high-touch employee communications. Greeley and Hansen is a global engineering firm focused on the water sector. For more than 100 years, the firm has worked with municipalities and private clients to deliver innovative, safe, equitable and adaptive water solutions, waste management and technology that sustains human life and beautifies communities around the world. The company has never been more committed to employee engagement and communications than under the leadership of a new chairman and recently appointed CEO, who took over just as the company was moving to remote work as a result of the beginning of the pandemic.
Execution: The Brand Partnership supported the office of the chairman and CEO of Greeley and Hansen with executive communications, corporate communications and marketing support for three years until the firm was sold. Work included employee communications from the chairman and CEO and other executive leadership; principals’ meeting support; leadership meeting facilitation; external board communications; awards and recognition; and advertising, public relations and marketing efforts for key initiatives of the firm and its leadership. The final project was the change management communications program for the sale of the company to TYLin.
Selling Luxury Residential Communities in Style
Situation: W3, a developer of luxury rental homes in the Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston areas of Texas, called on The Brand Partnership to help it create an upscale set of collateral to lease hundreds of rental homes in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area. This marketing communications project included naming the various floor plans of each development project.
Execution: The project began with identifying the key selling features of the properties under development and the compelling employment, lifestyle and educational features of the communities in which they would be located to uniquely position the many benefits of these luxurious rental homes. The finished product included beautiful collateral to support each development and distinguish it from other developments in the quickly growing communities, as well as key messaging for the marketing team.
Creating an Omnichannel Campaign to Increase Awareness & Marketshare
Situation: Ormco, a global orthodontic products company, was facing increased competition from direct-to-consumer (mail order) aligner companies biting into their marketshare for its highly advanced aligner and metal braces systems, and wanted to educate the public that not all braces or aligners are created equal, and that you often get what you pay for in life.
Execution: During a two-year relationship with Secondly, Ormco’s PR agency of record, the firm managed all professional and consumer communications. Work included a national consumer awareness effort informed by an opinion poll; a multifaceted PR campaign called Healthy Smile IQ; campaign key messages; an SEO-rich website with ongoing blog copy; media pitch materials (FAQ, pitch, bios, multiple tip sheets); bylined articles for our spokesperson doctors; media training of two doctor and one consumer media spokespersons; staffing a two-day video and photo shoot for the website, social media and packaging images; social media content for the campaign, and more. We also crafted all the consumer and professional (doctor) key messages for Ormco’s leading brands, Damon and Spark.
Results: The team secured national and local market broadcast and print media placements with our three spokespersons designed to educate consumers about the new choices in braces and clear aligners, and our SEO keyword-rich digital content attracted consumers to the HealthysmileIQ.com, Damon.com and Spark.com websites, including lead-generation opportunities using the doctor locator.
The Brand Partnership was hired as a white-label partner to Secondly to help create the agency and lead this work until a full team was hired.
What Our Clients Say
Testimonials
We wake up and go to bed every day thinking about our clients and what we can do to anticipate their needs before they ask, deliver insights that unlock new opportunities, or provide killer ideas and campaigns to elevate their brands among those most critical to their success. Our clients notice and value our obsession for ultimate partnership and going above expectations.
“We found a great deal of value working with Judy. We’re a fairly newly formed company, currently in the midst of integrating several pre-existing private school groups. Our portfolio now includes roughly 230 private schools, distributed across 25+ school brands and 18 states. We don’t yet have a head of corporate communications, but as the company has expanded, so have our communications needs and issues. I hired Judy to help us in three key areas. First was to do an extensive audit of our corporate and school-level communications and make recommendations for improving quality and consistency of our communications processes. Second, was to develop reputation management policies and procedures, and create a very detailed scenario-based crisis manual for our corporate and school teams to use in tandem. Lastly, we sought Judy’s expertise to develop a set of recommendations on how to build out a strategic communications function within our company. Judy was a pleasure to work with and was superb at communicating and keeping the projects on track. She provided a very solid set of deliverables and counsel to us.”
Lariayn Payne, CMO
Steve Gunther, CEOAwards
