CMO Triggers for Rebrand – Orange Square

How to make rebranding less risky: What health CEOs and CMOs need to know

How does Orange Square make the rebranding process less risky?

Well, we de-risk rebranding by aligning your brand strategy with your business strategy. That means every brand decision supports your larger goals, like funding growth or expansion.

We also help you define your unique position in the markets. We bring clarity and definition from your competitors. We want you to stand out.

We want you to be who you are. With the right architecture, your brand identity structure will be clear, easy to comprehend, and will make sure your company’s strengths are visible both internally and externally.

What makes the Orange Square approach different: Rebranding is business transformation, not design

What makes Orange Square’s approach different in rebranding?

We combine a proven strategic framework with a human-centered mindset. We don’t just walk you through some brand exercise and do a little bit of strategy and then get to identity. We focus on how what you’re doing in this change builds credibility and creates alignment inside and out. We help unify internal teams, gain investor confidence or board member confidence or advisor confidence. And we build a brand that people trust.

In short, we are helping you avoid the common missteps that companies make when they’re treating rebranding like a design exercise. It is not a design exercise. It is a business transformation.

Why branding firms all sound the same: Here’s what makes Orange Square different

Our clients over the years have said, “When we have people come in and they do pitches, you all sound the same.”

It’s one after the other. And I think the reason that creative services firms often sound the same and look the same on their websites is their focus on process; and that looks something like discovery, brand audit, creative strategy, creative execution, implementation. I mean, if you have ever searched for these services before, you have seen this on people’s websites. And I think that, as a designer myself, maybe early in my career, I fell into this. It’s like you just need enough information to get to the design piece. But that approach is really focus on it being a design approach. And I think this is also where the misconception comes in that rebranding is design and marketing. It’s because people are so focused on this process approach.

The Orange Square framework approach, on the other hand, provides a strategic blueprint that guides focused, high-level decision making and alignment across the entire organization before any kind of creative assessment is made; before strategy or execution has even been broached.

It clarifies your business objectives, determines your brand architecture, aligns internal teams, employees, and everyone at all levels of the company. It defines your clear market position, giving you a competitive advantage. It sets a clear vision for business growth, helping you leverage past success while positioning your future opportunities. It ensures your leadership teams move forward with unified clarity and purpose, and it establishes the trust in market presence essential for sustained business success, including if you’re a publicly traded company, shareholder value.

What sets Orange Square apart: 23 years in B2B health and research branding

We’ve talked about Orange Square’s framework and human-centered approach, but what else sets Orange Square apart?

Well, a lot actually. First, we specialize in business to business health and research. We have for 23 years. We’ve worked across the entire research and health spectrum from payers, clinical research and digital health to universities and other non-profits. We understand how critical trust is in this space, especially during times of change.

Our work is all about helping organizations in transition preserve and strengthen that trust.

5 things leaders get wrong about rebranding: What you don’t know until you’ve been through it

If you have never gone through a rebranding process, or maybe only once: What happens and what goes wrong?

You don’t realize until you’ve gone through it. There are five primary things that CEOs and CMOs get wrong until they have gone through a rebranding process.

They underestimate the strategic impact.

They treat rebranding as a superficial marketing or design update, instead of the critical strategic business transformation that redefines their entire organization.

They’re not recognizing the emotional complexity of a rebrand.

They underestimate the emotional challenges that they will face for all stakeholders, internal and external. Rebranding means letting go of your established identity and stepping into uncertainty and change.

They are not allocating sufficient time and resources.

They rush the process, failing to give the rebrand the necessary time, attention and investment for deep alignment and lasting impact.

They miss the opportunity for internal alignment.

They overlook the importance of engaging all and aligning all employees whose buy-in is essential in this new brand direction. They miss the opportunity to strengthen, expand trust and connection both internally and externally.

They have a fear of losing approval instead of owning their own identity.

This new identity. They worry too much about losing stakeholder approval, rather than confidently embracing and communicating their unique value in the marketplace.

So let me tell you a story about a client who had never gone through a rebranding process.

This was a merger-acquisition. There’s always a lot of pressure in merger-acquisitions. Time is always, you know…there’s always a tendency to rush everything. And I think when we started using the framework, there was a lot of misalignment between how they were going to combine services and who the new audiences were.

What did that look like? So this process, as we went through the framework, gave them at each stage more and more clarity for the business decisions they needed to make that they hadn’t. I understand that, especially in a merger-acquisition, you’ve taken so much time to get to this point that you really want to kind of get to this next stage.

But without using a framework and going through these clarity steps, you undermine all of the investments you just made.

Why rebranding is a strategic business decision NOT a design exercise

When I’m referring to rebranding as a strategic business decision as opposed to a design exercise, what am I talking about?

When properly executed, rebranding is strategic because it is the foundation for achieving key business goals over extended period of time. It’s aligning your vision, unifying your team, and driving growth. It redefines how employees understand their roles, motivating them to engage with the company’s mission.

It requires active participation from all departments (not just marketing), ensuring company-wide engagement.

It demands that the CEO actively champions and clearly communicates the brand’s purpose, reinforcing its importance across sales, customer support, IT, marketing and operations. The brand’s strategic vision starts with the CEO, who must authentically embody it to inspire belief and action throughout the organization. We love to work with CEOs who understand this opportunity.

How rebranding drives business growth: Clarity, confidence and exit value

So how exactly does rebranding drive business growth?

Companies that take branding seriously don’t just protect their existing equity. They accelerate market adoption, increase sales velocity, and enhance valuation. A successful rebrand secures stakeholder confidence by maintaining trust in the company’s vision. This enables faster decisions, smoother execution and sustained business momentum.

Let me tell you a story about a CEO that really wasn’t interested in rebranding, at all.

There wasn’t any significant challenge except for the fact that they wanted to really grow market share. And so I think that the CEO felt: Well you know, you guys can do this, sure…sounds great. And so we would go and present all these concepts. And it was interesting because they were scientists. So I totally understand that this wasn’t something they were focused on. They weren’t really into marketing. They they didn’t really understand what the concept of brand was. And we were using our framework and taking them through the process. They loved the clarity that it brought and they loved the framework. But I still think the work they were doing…they weren’t quite getting the importance.

Until one year, after the second rebrand we had done for them, they went to a show. And it was a trade show they had gone to every single year. They were presenting a bunch of posters, they were doing a bunch of talks. And there wasn’t any difference in the talks; they didn’t do any more talks, they didn’t have any more posters. But when we did the second rebrand, we also re-did all their PowerPoints and re-did all their posters. Everyone was coming up to them at the show: “Oh, you guys are everywhere! Look at this!” Then they got it: “Oh! Now we get what you were saying!” Because of everyone’s reaction to everything being cohesive and having an identity. And it was a stronger identity. And they understood their market position; that was reflected in everything they were saying.

And by the way, they didn’t have the opportunity to resell their company. In the end, their exit was selling to a Fortune 25. So in the end, it was a great investment.

This reminds me of something that Max Dupree said. He was a CEO of Herman Miller.

“We cannot become what we want by remaining what we are.”

The risk of rebranding without a framework: Strategy before design

So what’s the risk of rebranding without the use of a strategic framework?

Rebranding without strategic alignment or organizational trust is just surface-level design decoration. You miss the opportunity for deep market differentiation, internal clarity, stakeholder buy-in; all critical for driving sales, recruiting talent and securing partnerships. A rebrand that has been strategically positioned will have a direct positive impact on your business growth and health.

But clarity and alignment must come first in this process. Design will naturally follow from there.

The emotional side of rebranding: Why it’s hard and why it’s worth it

If brands didn’t matter, changing them would be easy.

However, certain emotional and psychological dynamics will come up during the rebrand process. As former CEO of IBM Ginni Rometty said, “Growth and comfort do not coexist.” These dynamics differ significantly depending on leadership context. Whether you are a founder or longstanding CEO or a newly appointed CEO stepping in through M&A or private equity, legacy leaders and long-term employees often feel deeply connected to the existing brand.

For them, the brand is deeply tied to their identity, their history, their sense of purpose. Naturally, they’re hesitant. Sometimes resistant to changing something they’ve invested in emotionally and professionally. On the other hand, new CEOs often brought in during significant transitions usually approach a rebrand with urgency. They’re driven by growth, strategic clarity, investor expectations; and they need to create and demonstrate value rapidly.