DeSantis Breindel

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the SVP of a business consulting firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DeSantis Breindel?

We hired DeSantis Breindelf for branding services; they were also responsible for website design and development. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They started with a comprehensive interview process in which they interviewed our key stakeholders. DeSantis Breindel also conducted focus groups to help determine who we are with our current services and determine the future services we want to offer. After that, we collaborated to figure out how we wanted that to sound and look to people everywhere. Overall, they completed a deep dive to figure out what was most important to us and then reflected that back to us effectively. 

DeSantis Breindel helped us with all aspects of branding. They were responsible for brand messaging, strategy, and corporate identity. They also helped us build our platform identity, find our key audience, and ensure that we describe and present our company accurately to the world. We had a previous website, but DeSantis Breindel essentially built the new site from scratch using Figma and WordPress. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with an engagement team that included two project managers, a few individuals in charge of strategy, a copywriter, designers, and web developers. 

How did you come to work with DeSantis Breindel?

DeSantis Breindel was a referral. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested about $250,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together between January 2023–March 2024. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We don’t have any concrete feedback, but our team has a great deal of excitement and renewed motivation. We have a sense of pride in using our new visuals and identity and feel like the visuals they created accurately highlight who we are.

How did DeSantis Breindel perform from a project management standpoint?
They consistently kept up with us throughout the engagement and delivered everything on time. Our project managers maintained a great line of communication and were in touch with us every week to ensure we were hitting deadlines. There were a couple of things that certainly had the possibility of slowing us down, but DeSantis Breindel was able to make sure we were managing everything, and we still launched on time.
We communicated via phone calls, Zoom, and email. We used Basecamp for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?
We’d like to shout out our whole team; they were all phenomenal to work with. Their team had a lot of strengths, but one of the things that they did well was their willingness to get to know our team so well. It felt like they were a part of our team, which was showcased in what they delivered to us. DeSantis Breindel was also incredibly skilled, humble, and fun to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?
There was one small issue with a transition period while one of their employees was leaving the company, but that was to be expected. The following person came in and hit the ground running, so we were happy. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Trust the team because they are skilled professionals who will be fun to work with. They will help you meet your deadlines and give you the results that you’re looking for. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CMO of Burford Capital, a publicly traded finance firm focused on the legal sector. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DeSantis Breindel?

We were relaunching our website, so we hired DeSantis Breindel. We needed the site to be professionally executed and our users to be able to easily find the right content.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We engaged DeSantis Breindel to handle the website's strategy and design, and the team devised a plan to rethink how we would present ourselves online. They helped us create a clean UX/UI design and recommended how to create a helpful site for our particular marketing needs. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with around five individuals, including Leesa (Chief Experience Officer), Allison (Account Director), Jessica (UX Director), and Natalie (Strategist). 

How did you come to work with DeSantis Breindel?

I’ve known Leesa for years, and we came to DeSantis Breindel to work with her. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested about $150,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together between December 2022–June 2023.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

The site hasn’t been launched yet, but we were pleased with the engagement. We had a bad experience previously, and DeSantis Breindel was the opposite of that. Our executives have been happy with the work, and overall, it was easy to be confident in their product. 

How did DeSantis Breindel perform from a project management standpoint?

They met every deadline and made the most of their time with us and the knowledge we gave them. We communicated via Microsoft Teams, and project management platforms were used. 

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

We’d like to shout out Leesa; she was a pleasure to work with, and we were incredibly impressed with her. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the key factors we appreciated about DeSantis Breindel was their willingness to work on exactly what we needed and collaborate with our existing partner. They did an excellent job of revamping how we present ourselves. They’re a high-quality B2B marketing agency that is well-suited to blue chip brands or brands that want to be blue chip but don’t have the budget.

The employees from DeSantis Breindel are extremely high caliber and straightforward in their approach. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing we can come up with; we only had good experiences on the project. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Our team was great, and I would recommend working with those individuals. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a partner and the CRO of Miebach Consulting Group. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DeSantis Breindel?

It had been a long time since we looked into our brand. At the same time, supply chains had become an important topic amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of these, we decided it was the perfect time to design a new brand, come up with a new brand strategy, and develop a new brand voice and visual identity. DeSantis Breindel helped us through that entire journey. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our global leadership team initially developed a hypothesis of what we wanted the new brand to be. DeSantis Breindel did a brand audit during the RFP process. They challenged some of the things we thought were good ideas, comparing us to similar companies and checking what we were doing against what those companies did. 

In other words, they did an in-depth discovery phase. We were a diverse company with 27 offices in 22 countries across the world. Considering that, they worked on getting to know our business and interviewed 40–50 of our internal staff. Their team also interviewed 20 global customers and some prospective clients. 

DeSantis Breindel has helped us with everything, including our new brand voice, strategy, verbal identity, and visual identity. These include our logo, name, color schemes, messaging, design, and website copy. The team has also worked on new brand videos for internal and external purposes; they’ve even trained our organization on using the new brand and overseeing the activation campaign. 

Moreover, the team is responsible for the design, strategy, wireframes, and copy of our website. They work on the blueprint, key functionality, and features of the website, but we use a different third-party web development company to handle the backend. We plan to launch the website in September 2023. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 10–12 teammates from DeSantis Breindel throughout the process. They have a team of subject matter experts working on each aspect of the rebranding. These teammates include James (Brand Strategy Director), Chelsea (Account Director), Natalie (Strategist), and Grant (Creative Director). 

How did you come to work with DeSantis Breindel?

We looked DeSantis Breindel up online. Even though our headquarters was in Europe, our team wanted an American agency since they were great at conveying simple but powerful messaging. We did a ton of research and went through an RFP process, starting with around 20 organizations. 

After narrowing the list to six teams, we asked for proposals and had pitch meetings. Then, we further narrowed the teams down to two. We pressure-tested those two teams, and at the end of the day, DeSantis Breindel had the best capabilities and a fair pricing for the value were going to get. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $500,000–$1 million. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June 2022, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We don’t have hard metrics, but we’ve announced the new brand in our annual global meeting and received incredibly positive feedback. On top of that, we’ve allowed some key customers to preview the new brand, which has received glorious praise from those key accounts. 

Overall, everybody’s beyond thrilled with what DeSantis Breindel has developed. We’re truly excited to launch the new brand. 

How did DeSantis Breindel perform from a project management standpoint?

James is smart, listens to us, and comes up with great ideas, and Chelsea keeps us honest while helping with our timelines and organization. Meanwhile, Natalie handles the verbal work and is like a walking thesaurus of powerful emotional language. Grant is truly creative. 

Moreover, DeSantis Breindel delivers on the deadlines we have; any timeline issue comes from our side. For budget, there have been no contentious discussions about the fairness of their pricing. 

For communication, their team has access to our Teams, where we chat, upload files, and receive friendly reminders from Chelsea. We do communicate via emails, but we do file-sharing and our day-to-day communications through Teams. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They do their homework. On top of that, they have good teammates to work with; I enjoy being on calls with them, and they fit well into our company culture. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s hard to lean on customers in the beginning because they need to develop a good rapport with us, but we could’ve benefitted more if they had held our feet to the fire at the project's onset. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be fully open and transparent with DeSantis Breindel on your status and struggles. Feed them information. The more you give them upfront, the better. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the VP of corporate marketing at Infoblox. Infoblox is a company that unites networking and security operations teams, data, and platforms to help protect networks and keep them up and running with 99% uptime.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DeSantis Breindel?

We have been in business for 23 years without changing our visual appearance. We occasionally adjusted the messaging in our verbal brand but had kept our visual brand the same since the company was founded. We hired DeSantis Breindel to help us with our branding. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

We brought them our new brand guidelines and asked them to help us further. They did our booth design for a double-decker booth that we were going to unveil at the world's largest security conference, which had about 40,000 people attend. It was the first time we unveiled our new brand, and they helped us choose the visual imagery accompanying the launch. 

DeSantis Breindel created a Motion toolkit and helped make our videos more consistent. Previously, employees across the company made videos and didn’t have clear outlines for consistency. DeSantis Breindel also assisted us with developing our animated brand launch video. This video explained what we were doing and how we went to market.

The video also brought our new messaging to the forefront and was used to unveil our new logo. DeSantis Breindel created the video and took care of the music, sound mixing, and production, but we provided the voiceover. 

We already had our website, but it almost felt like we were starting from scratch. We went through our homepage with them and told them what we liked about it, what didn’t matter to us, and what we wanted them to reimagine. There were a lot of sections that we worked on together to figure out what needed to change. Using Figma, DeSantis Breindel created a mock-up and redesign for our company homepage, website takeover, and about us page. 

We also contracted them to do a brand activation campaign and develop some ideas that we could continue throughout the next year to bring our new brand to life. We ran our social channels ourselves, but they gave us a strategy for things we could do.

What is the team composition?

We had different groups of people from their team. We started off working with Howard (Co-CEO) because I had worked with him in the past. We had two different project leads, including Debbie (Program Management); we also worked with Dru (Co-CEO) who was responsible for the creative overlay being consistent across both projects.

We worked with two copywriters, someone who handled the Figma files, and another individual that created the video. 

How did you come to work with DeSantis Breindel?

I had worked with them in the past. We hired DeSantis Breindel because of their creative thinking, ability to push the envelope on ideas, and overall demeanor. Though we liked another company’s logo more, we wanted to partner with them to activate our brand.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent between $100,000–$125,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from January–April 2023, but we intend to work with them again. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We did an on-site survey at the conference where we unveiled our rebrand and asked people to do a survey about the rebrand. There were 125 surveys completed: 95% of people loved the new brand direction, 85% liked the new visuals, and 95% said the brand messages were believable and compelling. 

How did DeSantis Breindel perform from a project management standpoint?

They met our deadlines and stayed on budget. We had a tight turnaround because we wanted to go live at a conference and needed more help than we thought we did. DeSantis Breindel never said no and always worked with us. 

They were also flexible with us on how to apply the budget to get the most that we could out of the process, even if some of the changes were smaller. We typically communicated through email, Google Drive, and had weekly calls.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

Howard, Dru, and Debbie are definitely people I would shout out. Their web designer was really good at her job as well. Debbie was always available via email, and anytime people from our company reached out to her for a file she sent it immediately. She went above and beyond to work with us because she was really committed to our project.

Dru was instrumental in her ability to listen to our needs and know when we were happy or unhappy with something or needed to try again. She seemed to care about whether or not we were happy with DeSantis Breindel's work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are a creative powerhouse with a broad skill set and creative spark that helps a company stand out. They definitely brought the right people in to complete the job, but kept connective tissues between various jobs.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think they could have stronger copywriters who understand cybersecurity to make less work for the customer.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do a good job when creating your brief, and let them know what you’re looking for. Give DeSantis Breindel the messaging documents, but don’t assume they will read them and interpret them how you want. Spend time on a call with them to discuss the messaging, your company culture, and your style so they don’t have to do everything based on trial and error.  

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of a commercial real estate investment management firm. I manage the client business, product development, and mergers and acquisitions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DeSantis Breindel?

We needed their team’s branding expertise.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In the beginning, we provided all of our existing collateral related to our current and aspirational brand. DeSantis Breindel conducted focus groups and interviewed our task force, investors, and clients to understand our firm and its strengths. 

They developed some refreshed content, including taglines and mission statements, for our website and other promotional materials. They worked on our logo, color schemes, and digital branding.

DeSantis Breindel’s process was iterative; they regularly ran concepts by our task force for feedback.

We recently brought DeSantis Breindel in on another project that involved rebranding our product’s marketing materials.

What is the team composition?

The team morphed as the project went on; we worked with a solid ten teammates throughout.

Initially, we worked with their senior team. Then, we worked with their project management, graphic design, and web teams.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $300,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from Q2 of 2019 until February 2023.

How did you come to work with DeSantis Breindel?

I knew one of the principals there. We sent an RFP to three different firms and selected DeSantis Breindel because they seemed like the best fit.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We got a ton of great feedback on DeSantis Breindel’s work. There weren’t measurable metrics, but internal and external stakeholders loved the new brand.

How did the company perform from a project management standpoint?

The budget crept up a little bit, but the project management was good, and deadlines were met. We used email, Zoom, Google Meet, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Skype, and live meetings to communicate. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their professionalism, knowledge of the industry, and understanding of the competitive set made them stand out. DeSantis Breindel was also flexible and adapted to follow our directions.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I can think of.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Having a clear idea of what you want the engagement to be will help.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a software company. We’re currently in the bootstrapping phase, so we’re doing a lot of consulting work. We’ve just started our software sales.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DeSantis Breindel?

We were trying to present a product in a way that was different from how legacy IT software companies worked. We wanted to introduce a concept that would lead to the product itself, so it was more like branding work.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DeSantis Breindel worked on a microsite for our product. They did everything from soup to nuts, working on the initial concept. We initially engaged DeSantis Breindel for another consulting opportunity; they listened to what we were trying to accomplish and helped us to explain it better. Then, we brought them in with that approach. DeSantis Breindel discussed how we’d do everything conceptually and then got the core details to put them in a graphical context to build the microsite.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Howard (Co-CEO), Leesa (Experience), an account representative, a creative person, and a technical person. 

How did you come to work with DeSantis Breindel?

We went through Google and looked at shops with experience with branding for fintech.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with DeSantis Breindel from July–December 2022. We might do a re-release later because we’re going to some conferences this year, so we’ll probably do a cleanup. If we do that, we’ll do it through them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We released the microsite on a Monday, and we’d already got a partner by Friday, so we didn’t end up actually announcing it. As a result, we haven’t brought it to a lot of social media. We’ll share it on LinkedIn in the future, but not for a while.

How did DeSantis Breindel perform from a project management standpoint?

The account manager primarily ran the project, and the team effectively stayed on target. They had a great level of experience, so they understood what needed to get done by which date. Overall, the team’s depth was excellent.

Most of the communication was done over Microsoft Teams and Zoom, but we had one meeting in person in New York. We had a client there, so we brought some of our team to meet up with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

DeSantis Breindel had strong leadership, and they were capable of taking the project from the initial discussion to completion. Moreover, they weren’t obscenely expensive as other big shops are. Overall, DeSantis Breindel was specific to our space, comprehensive in their work, and price-appropriate.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything off the top of my head; we had no complaints. I initially was concerned that a couple of people might be a bit wet behind the ears for the level of work we were doing, but it didn’t turn out that way. Since I’m from the finance world, I wasn’t used to their casual approach, which created a bit of trepidation for me. However, everyone knew what they were doing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Come to the table a bit more prepared. It’s easy to expect your marketing people to do everything for you. However, there’s an aspect of understanding what you’re trying to achieve, so you need to sit down and discuss it in greater detail before starting.

Additionally, if you can, I recommend doing your first two meetings in person.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a former executive for a health technology platform. My company was a pre-initial public offering (IPO) high-growth startup in the health technology space, selling solutions for hospitals and health systems.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DeSantis Breindel?

We were trying to understand our overall brand awareness among our target audiences and build out brand behaviors. Our goal was to ensure that everything we were doing as an organization was a reflection of the brand's personality so that we could build that through everything we do.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

As we thought about brand awareness, we initially went to DeSantis Breindel to help us put together a thoughtful approach to measuring our current brand awareness. Throughout this initial stage, they focused on understanding our current state, collecting a lot of information, and doing interviews with internal and external stakeholders. To help them with information gathering, we provided them with research documents, user personas we had built, information about our competitive landscape, and documents regarding our overall strategy.

As part of this process, DeSantis Breindel also collaborated with us to develop a list of questions to assess different elements of our brand and compare them to various competitors in the space. Once that survey was articulated, they conducted the survey, collected the results, and shaped that information into a narrative that they were able to deliver to our executives. This deliverable included a current state brand awareness assessment and some recommendations regarding where we could go for phase two of this project.

After the assessment period, DeSantis Breindel worked with us on building certain attributes of our brand that could help us resonate with our core audiences but also were reflective of our true culture. This part of the project also included some stakeholder interviews, which we structured into key committees across the company.

Moreover, DeSantis Breindel ran several workshops and did various brainstorming activities to identify some of our key brand behaviors. This process helped us generate ideas and collect some feedback. After that, we took some time to refine those ideas, consolidate the feedback, and articulate our brand behaviors. Ultimately, they delivered a report on our brand behaviors.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 6–8 teammates from DeSantis Breindel, including creative strategists, researchers, and account management team members. 

How did you come to work with DeSantis Breindel?

When we were shortlisting companies that focused on brand awareness work, an executive from another company recommended DeSantis Breindel. Once we understood their capabilities, we decided to work with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked from December 2021–March 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

DeSantis Breindel’s work was valuable. It gave us a lot of insight into how to formulate brand and campaign language, as well as how to talk to our constituents. Additionally, it helped us refine our message to the market and better position ourselves.

How did DeSantis Breindel perform from a project management standpoint?

DeSantis Breindel was very responsive and managed the project very well. However, I felt that the project went long in both phases due to some scheduling issues on our side. Our entire engagement was mostly virtual. We had a lot of meetings through Zoom and communicated via email. If there was ever an in-person meeting, I wasn’t part of it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

DeSantis Breindel’s communication style was great. They had great strategic insight, which they brought to the collaboration. Moreover, they were very organized, and their presentations were quite compelling and engaging, which was great.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We spent a lot of time iterating on certain aspects of the project, such as the messaging around brand behaviors. I felt that we iterated a few too many times, which dragged the project on. Still, most scheduling delays were caused by our inability to get our external interviews scheduled, so that wasn’t DeSantis Breindel’s fault.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t have any particular advice regarding working with DeSantis Breindel. As with any other agency, you need to have a strong team dedicated to the project internally so that you can work collaboratively with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of marketing at Vesttoo, a fintech company with an insurance risk transfer platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DeSantis Breindel?

We reached out to DeSantis Breindel to develop our corporate and investor-facing messaging and brand positioning.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When DeSantis Breindel came into the project, we already had our branding, brand voice, logos, and colors, so they didn’t do any graphic development. Still, they reviewed our assets and agreed that they were good. Then, they helped us conduct qualitative interviews with our potential clients and internal stakeholders to better understand where our brand should be positioned regarding its tone, voice, and corporate messaging. In total, they interviewed over 20 people.

Ultimately, DeSantis Breindel delivered a long messaging handbook detailing where our brand has opportunities to shine, which spaces online can feature our company, and how we can take those opportunities to get more people to talk about our brand. In addition to that, they conducted a final workshop with senior executives.

Some of our competitors are technology-focused, and others are purpose-focused. For this messaging development, we decided to focus on our people instead. Thus, this handbook contains the core messaging for both our corporate and investor-facing sides. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with five people from DeSantis Breindel in total, and we collaborated on a daily basis with three of them, including a project manager and some writers.

How did you come to work with DeSantis Breindel?

They were recommended to us.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January–April 2022. The process took about four months, and we went through a follow-up process for a couple of weeks afterward. However, this was just phase one of the project, and we want to work with them again for the next phase.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We were very impressed with DeSantis Breindel’s deliverable. I’ve presented the handbook on various occasions, including our advisory board meeting with our management team, and we’ve all been very pleased with it because our new messaging is clear.

How did DeSantis Breindel perform from a project management standpoint?

DeSantis Breindel’s project management was very clear. Their team was very responsive, always on time, and clear about what they needed and when. We communicated via email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were very happy with the entire process overall.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything DeSantis Breindel could improve on. Initially, there was a little back and forth regarding legal constraints because we were under heavy regulations and had to be careful. Still, those challenges were normal.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a department VP for a life science organization. I sit on the commercial side of the business and co-lead our corporate brand. We do various things, including clinical trials, biospecimen studies, regulatory and FDA approval support, drug manufacturing, pricing, value studies, and other tasks related to launching and sustaining drugs in the market.

We’re currently expanding our capabilities, products, and services, and we’re looking to bring new drugs to the market. We also want to bring new therapies into the market that will leverage all sorts of capabilities, including technology, data science, and service-oriented opportunities like consulting.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DeSantis Breindel?

Our company has been built through acquisitions; considering our current expansions, we’re continuing to formulate our story. Thus, we hired DeSantis Breindel to help us understand how we can better tell our story to avoid coming across as a very fragmented company. We were better known for one of our smaller brands, so one of our goals was to be known as a comprehensive company for all of our services, from R&D to manufacturing and commercialization.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DeSantis Breindel has conducted a branding exercise to develop our verbal and visual identity. They’ve worked with us to understand who we are currently in the market and who we are internally.

DeSantis Breindel’s work mostly focuses on helping us understand our current state with clients and employees, as well as the market we want to be in. They’ve also helped us discover how to best position our services and talk comprehensively about what we can offer other organizations and life science companies.

For this exercise, we initially provided DeSantis Breindel with our existing company assets. For example, we had over a dozen social media sites for our different service lines, so they looked at those to understand our voice and presence in the market and see how we could integrate and tell our story.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with around 10 people from DeSantis Breindel, including project managers and their two co-founders.

How did you come to work with DeSantis Breindel?

We found them on a web search. When we started our branding work, we put together criteria in the form of a checklist containing what we were looking for. Some individuals on our team nominated firms they already knew, but we also looked for other firms on Google to read reviews and see what other service providers had to offer.

When we found DeSantis Breindel, we were very impressed with their offering, so we included them in our RFP process. Their team knocked it out of the park with their presentation, and we knew that they were the right partner for us. They showcased what they were able to do by providing us with a very real, tangible, and comparable case study, which gave us confidence in their work.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2021, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We’re very satisfied with DeSantis Breindel’s work.

How did DeSantis Breindel perform from a project management standpoint?

DeSantis Breindel’s project management is excellent. They’re highly responsive, organized, collaborative, and game-oriented. We’ve really enjoyed working with them, especially with their project managers. We have virtual meetings every week, and we’ve also had four in-person meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

DeSantis Breindel’s customer service and partnership orientation are outstanding. We’ve had a lot of stops, starts, and redirects over the last year, and they’ve been highly accommodating to our changing needs, acting as a true partner as we continue to figure them out. They feel like an extension of our team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have consistent and ongoing communication with them. Additionally, being straightforward and honest is critical, especially when you face internal challenges, so treat them as a true partner.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a global venture capital firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DeSantis Breindel?

We wanted to develop and strengthen our brand in terms of logo, visual identity, voice, and personality.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DeSantis Breindel provides us with branding services. First, they did upfront research and spoke to various internal and external stakeholders. In those interviews, they got our stakeholders’ perceptions of our target audience, who we were, how we matched up to the current brand, brand associations, their vision for the brand, and how we compared to our competitors. They took those learnings and put them together into general findings they presented to us. 

From there, they started developing our brand strategy, including our overarching brand idea, voice, and positioning. The team constructed our lead message, tagline, and experience principles, which refer to how we bring the brand to life. That led to the visual identity; they created our logo, color schemes, typography, and illustration. 

We’ve started a new contract with DeSantis Breindel to help us activate against the brand in terms of making our website and business templates like Zoom backgrounds or PowerPoint presentations, social media images, and other assets. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with around 10 teammates from DeSantis Breindel, from strategists to account managers to designers to copywriters. Some teammates have come in and out of the project, like the people who worked on the upfront strategy and research. Other teammates have been consistent throughout, and now that we’re moving into the activation phase, another group of designers will be working with us. 

How did you come to work with DeSantis Breindel?

I had researched various branding agencies and came across a piece of research DeSantis Breindel put together on venture capital firms and their branding, which brought me to their site. I narrowed my search and reached out to different agencies; we met with them and got their scope of work. 

Ultimately, we decided that DeSantis Breindel was the right agency for us because they specialized in B2B brands and leaned towards financial services and healthcare industries. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $200,000–$300,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around December 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

The project was supposed to take six months, and it has taken over a year because we’ve had many changes internally, and DeSantis Breindel has been very patient with us. Since the new branding isn’t live in the market, I can’t share any metrics yet. 

How did DeSantis Breindel perform from a project management standpoint?

They deliver items on time and are responsive to our needs. We primarily communicate via email and weekly meetings. We’ve also had some larger presentations. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

DeSantis Breindel’s focus on B2B brands distinguishes them from the competition. They had a better understanding of us and our needs than other agencies focusing on B2C brands. Due to this approach, DeSantis Breindel understands our company’s landscape well. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their first or second pass at our visual identity missed the mark because they took it too far. They took a few rounds to hit what was right for our brand in terms of design. However, we got where we needed to and are very happy with the result. Overall, they’ve been really happy with DeSantis Breindel. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be prepared on your side. DeSantis Breindel hits their deadlines and moves things forward; in some ways, their decision-making has been faster than what we’ve been ready for. While they haven’t tried to push us along faster than we’ve been comfortable, they’re ready to move and jump headfirst into a project. 

Therefore, make sure you’re ready to jump in, too. If you want an internal team working with DeSantis Breindel, figure out who’ll participate and who the key decision-makers will be. This approach will help you keep moving on track because DeSantis Breindel is ready to live up to their end of the bargain to keep the project moving.