Global Brand Works

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a fintech company that serves a bank and credit union audience. I lead business development efforts and am tasked with direct interactions to grow our sales and partnership funnel.

For what projects/services did your company hire Global Brand Works?

Our company is 10+yrs old and needed a modern, differentiated branding identity for a new product launch that expanded our offering. We were also appealing to a new type of client -- digital fintechs looking to work with bank and credit unions.

What were your goals for this project?

Build a clearly aligned but evolved product brand that could both stand independently and fit within our corporate umbrella to leverage our solid reputation.

How did you select Global Brand Works?

I was not responsible for selecting GBW but I was involved with their team as soon as they were brought on to the project.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

GBW's process was predictable but effective. We had several introductory/exploratory sessions in group and individual settings to get their team up to speed on our project and needs. The iterative process was helpful for both our team and theirs to refine our offering and value proposition into one that we're proud of and have received consistently positive feedback on it's ability to portray the values we were aiming to represent.

What was the team composition?

We worked directly with Shannon and Caroline.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The branding work can be see at www.joinaliro.com. The website was created by another firm but the branding and tone are the finished product of our work with GBW.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We pushed their team on timeline and they responded well. Our weekly sessions were productive and on time.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The Global Brand Works team operates with flexibility, focus, and heart. Their approach to naming and visual identity is clearly rooted in many of years of experience. They have honed a methodology that delivers powerful and differentiating branding, quickly and efficiently.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Our relationship with GBW was alongside some other providers to bring expertise in various areas of brand development. Communication and coordination between those teams could have been a bit better to reduce some early work that was presented to us but underdeveloped. The final product was fantastic, so this was merely a need to refine and catch up all team members.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the former senior director of branding at PayPal.

What challenge were you trying to address with Global Brand Works?

Wanting to increase the bandwidth of our global brand team, we hired them for brand training, brand governance documentation processes, and other brand management disciplines.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They started out by speaking with stakeholders at PayPal to better understand the onboarding process. That allowed them to design an internal onboarding module for the brand that organizes how we get new hires acclimated and educated to our company. They wrote the module in three different formats. They delivered a webinar, a training presentation deck, and a PDF, all of which worked together.

Following that effort, they focused on brand governance, looking after the consistency and usage of our brand. Based on their findings, they trained people on how to execute brand governance across the business. In that effort, they helped all of our business units around the globe.

At the time, we had a centralized brand organization and wanted to better centralize marketing for discipline and consistency around managing the use of our brand. The bigger objective was our own brand goal which was to be a top-100 global brand. Eventually, we were aiming to be a top-50 global brand.

Managing audience understanding of the brand and fostering internal pride for the brand were both achieved through their onboarding module and brand governance work. 

What is the team composition?

I worked with Caroline (Co-Founder) and Shannon (Co-Founder).

How did you come to work with Global Brand Works?

They were referred to me by a colleague in consulting. He used their services to get high-quality brand work done quickly. The real selling point of Global Brand Works is both Shannon and Caroline had backgrounds in working for a large matrix organization in both marketing and non-marketing capacities. They seemed to have empathy for clients, strong marketing decision-making skills, and the ability to execute thoroughly on a budget.

They really share the mindset with organizations like PayPal, understanding how effective marketing can turn habits into customs and the difference marketing makes for a brand. That mentality helps the brand, employees, our evaluation, and customers.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent between $200,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the collaboration in March 2015, and they're still engaging with PayPal. They helped with different projects throughout the years as well.

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

We used to give surveys at the end of every training session and seminar on brand engagement. After their work, we received predominantly top-box scores. The brand session was usually the top-scoring session at the onboarding training, and we also received positive feedback on the webinars.

Our team did brand engagement sessions cross-functionally, but they always scored highly for usefulness, effectiveness, enjoyment, content, and purpose. Those were the five areas that we measured.

How did Global Brand Works perform from a project management standpoint?

They're very flexible and understand that timelines can change our end. Because of that knowledge, they expressed empathy for our decision-making process. They're also skilled at devising creative solutions to problems. Depending on our timeline and budget for specific work, they're able to offer a range of solutions that give the business flexibility.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are like part of the team, working in our office, and striving to understand our overall business processes. In that effort, they were close with the HR team to ensure the onboarding module aligned with their vision.

Throughout, they took a great sense of ownership in their work and the success of stakeholders. They were personable, willing to listen, and committed to our success. From the start of the engagement, they were standout team players.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were times when they could have been more proactive about the next step of a project rather than waiting on a brief from us. To be fair, they were trying to be considerate of our budgets and timelines in waiting for our signal.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They were brilliant at giving us instant bandwidth, behaving like part of the team. Their ability to largely onboard themselves to the project and company took the worry off our shoulders.

Because they're a small agency, there isn’t an enormous amount of wasted overhead. Both Caroline and Shannon can add a sense of seniority to the project and also know every brand hack in the book for companies wanting to stretch their dollars. Their resourcefulness is great for clients on a budget.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for Chevron Federal Credit Union, and I'm the head of marketing.

What challenge were you trying to address with Global Brand Works?

We are launching our new brand in January, and my team was really focused on updating and making changes to our website. I realized I needed outside help to do the internal brand activation.

We had recently done a new brand strategy and redefined our two distinct brands. We operate as Chevron Federal Credit Union and Spectrum Credit Union, and we contacted Global Brand Works to help us with internal employee brand activation

What was the scope of their involvement?

The scope of the project was to create a series of presentations around why the brand is important and why it’s important that people be brand ambassadors. We set up five different employee engagements which we did monthly. 

We have a monthly meeting with all of our employees where we educate them on the brand, brand strategy, how they are involved in the brand, how they can live the brand, the difference between a brand and taglines, and our value propositions. 

Global Brand Works put together all of the educational pieces for us and then encapsulated the whole thing into a training module that we could then use as we brought on new employees. Those employees can get all of that training in one training module.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Caroline (Co-Founder) and Shannon (Co-Founder).

How did you come to work with Global Brand Works?

I met Global Brand Works at a conference where they showed me some work they had done. It was interesting that there was an agency that specialized in helping people do internal brand activation.

I talked to them and they were going to do exactly what I needed. They had a system in place and had all of their recommendations, so I knew that it was going to be really easy for me.

How much have you invested in them?

The five sessions and the whole package cost $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in July 2020, and we are finishing the project in December 2020.

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

We didn’t go in with any specific KPIs. With 300 employees, we know that everyone has consumed the information which is great because we have a way to test that. We got so much positive feedback from our employees about how much they enjoyed the branding education, sessions, and exercises. 

We spent an hour a month working with them and they did all the work. It hit me that if we had done this on top of everything that we were doing, it would have been impossible to get this level of quality of education.

How did Global Brand Works perform from a project management standpoint?

Global Brand Works was extremely responsive. They always followed up, and if they were going to be late with a deliverable, they would send me a message that they needed more time. 

The communication between our teams was really good. I always heard back from them right away. We mostly talked via Zoom, and we used email. We didn’t use any project management tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were truly experts in this brand activation. There are a lot of agencies that do branding that could probably do this work, but what I liked about Global Brand Works was that they had done this many times. 

They have a system and they know how to take someone who doesn’t know anything about branding from nothing to something. I am happy to have found an agency that specializes in this. 

We didn’t have to take the wheel at all. The team had all this great stuff off the shelf and made suggestions about doing certain exercises. Global Brand Works was a true partner for our brand activation project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would've been good to have a shared folder system. We were sending some big files back and forth, and I think it was more on our end where we couldn’t receive them so we had to figure out a way to get these files back and forth because there were videos embedded in them, but that was a little glitch. With some of our other agencies, we use Basecamp or Google.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Go in with a strong sense of where your employee base is now and what they need to learn and where they need to go. You need to have a really good sense of where you want to start and how you want your employees to act or behave at the end.

Global Brand Works will then come back to you with all the different things that they could do for that type of employee pool.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was the Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

For what projects/services did your company hire Global Brand Works?

1. Develop a revised brand strategy to leverage the newly developed strategic plan 2. Develop and execute an institutional advertising campaign

What were your goals for this project?

Create a coherent internal and external brand expression. Expand our audiences. Drive attendance to the museum.

How did you select this vendor?

Recommendation from prior client

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Analyzed extensive existing research, interviewed key staff members, developed a new brand strategy, conducted staff input sessions. Developed a multichannel advertising campaign and prepared to execute it.

What was the team composition?

The two principals of the firm, plus freelance support

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The work was very well-received by a breadth of internal/external audiences across the museum

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The quality of their thinking and high level of responsiveness was impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No areas of improvement

Please describe your company and your position there.

Malwarebytes is a security software company that serves both consumers and businesses with endpoint security and protection. I am the VP, Global Demand Generation and Experience which leads brand, campaigns, demand gen/field marketing, and creative services.

For what projects/services did your company hire Global Brand Works?

We needed assistance articulating our brand strategy, including all attributes, characteristics, narrative, and direction. .

What were your goals for this project?

We required quick action, a team that had a solid breadth of experience, and the flexibility of a group that could act as an extension of our internal team. The deliverables were a documented brand strategy along with written corporate and business-it narratives.

How did you select this vendor?

Their experience ranges from large and small brands, technology and packaged goods and everything in-between, demonstrated Global Brand Works' ability to apply rigor along with strategic and bespoke adaptation to true brand articulation. I have worked with Global Brand Works in the past, and knew their capabilities were just what Malwarebytes needed.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

We hired Global Brand Works to lead us in a rebrand with a super-fast timeline. They developed an approach that gave our senior leadership confidence in the process and outcome. From the start, they quickly understood our culture and the requirements for the project. To lay the groundwork for the initiative, they conducted a competitive audit, a best practices report, a listening tour, and facilitated an inspirational workshop which resulted in a distinct and precise brand strategy. That was the foundation for our new, flexible visual identity.

Because of their insight and knowledge, we now have the useful and practical tools to grow and protect our brand: mission, equities, benefits, personality, story, purpose, key messaging by target audience, and visual identity guidelines. Shannon and Caroline are also fun to work with – they are more like an extension of our team rather than an external agency!

What was the team composition?

I worked with both founders, Caroline and Shannon.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We had great feedback from the executives, who really valued both their experience and the "outside in" perspective. Additionally, our roll-out of the new visual identity has had high praise throughout the company.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We did put in some time to articulate the process, and the timeline associated. We made sure we rolled that out to all involved executives, which was essential given the busy schedules. Once we had the key components and decisions, the back and forth with the agency went really well.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The experience from the team is fantastic, and they did a very good job making sure this was as seamless as possible. They also did an outstanding job project managing it all to keep things on track. Finally, they are professional and diplomatic. With brand work, it can be an emotional time with strong opinions-- they navigate this very well.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None the comes to mind.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the Branding Manager for a Global Standards Industry Organization.

What challenge were you trying to address with Global Brand Works?

We needed a very demanding, globally acceptable naming and visualization for our global technology product.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Global Brand Works to name and visually brand an exciting break-through, global technology product. It will be used across multiple industries in potentially every country in the world. GBW generated an abundance of viable options that ranged from evocative to descriptive, and a very impressive thorough report for the finalists. It helped us evaluate the output in terms of trademarking, domain availability, social media handle availability, pronounceability, and readability. 

What is the team composition?

There are about 10 people working on our account.

How did you come to work with Global Brand Works?

We awarded them the work as they offered the most value for the project. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $10,000-$40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started to work mid-2019, and collaboration is ongoing.

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

Their thorough final report helped us to successfully decide what names to carry to legal review and pass it for most of the names.

How did Global Brand Works perform from a project management standpoint?

They were on top of the project and were very fast and professional. They also showed flexibility with changes on our side. They did a very good job with time management. We had some F2F meetings, but also communicated over web calls. They worked fast and professionally to deliver a very thorough report. The team showed flexibility, accommodating changes along the way. They did a great job with the global scale of the project. My advice would be to be open about your needs and communicate everything needed for them to offer ways for navigating through the changes.

What did you find most impressive about them?

All the options they gave us were great. They were very thorough with their reports. Their team showed flexibility, accommodating changes along the way. They did a great job of thinking about a global audience.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they did a great job.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open about your needs or changes along the way. They will accommodate as long as you communicate everything as needed.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Once associated mostly with payments on the online auction site eBay, PayPal has become a widely accepted method of payment both online and off. ... PayPal's core business is an online payment service that allows individuals and businesses to transfer funds electronically.

For what projects/services did your company hire Global Brand Works ?

Employee Onboarding Content

What were your goals for this project?

Refresh our content and streamline to provide a better presentation for our new hires. Include a facilitator guide to easily scale our program internationally.

How did you select this vendor?

GBW has been working within PayPal for several years. We gave the scope of our project and agreed we were in alignment for budget and timing of the project.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Global Brand Works overhauled our entire employee onboarding content to make it more on-brand and on-message. The final resulting content, from PowerPoint presentations, to videos, to a detailed and thoughtful facilitation guide, was exactly what we needed.

It was designed beautifully. They have great attention to detail, and are real experts when it comes to understanding how to connect and engage with our global employee audience. They have a true understanding of our brand and I consider them an extension of our team who go above and beyond.

What was the team composition?

Primarily I interacted with their Program Manager.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

We have received very positive feedback as we have scaled our program internally. Using the facilitator guide has allowed us to scale effectively.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Very effective. Timelines were clear and adhered to.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I enjoy working with Global Brand Works as they are responsible, efficient, and personable.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None

Please describe your company and your position there.

VP of Global Marketing at a mid-size digital consultancy.

For what projects/services did your company hire Global Brand Works ?

Strategic brand refresh.

What were your goals for this project?

Evolve our brand both creatively and strategically to get our company to the next level. Able to be seen by clients and employees alike as a full service digital consultancy.

How did you select this vendor?

We reached out to 11 firms initially. We felt Global Brand Works had a great grasp of both the strategic and creative as well as past experience helping companies like ours rebrand.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Our product offering was expanding, and we decided that our brand needed to be freshened up to tell our new story. Global Brand Works shepherded us through the process, which included global qualitative and quantitative research to understand relevance, an internal listening tour to understand authenticity, and a competitive report to understand differentiation. They facilitated a fun and engaging workshop with key team members to uncover our brand’s “secret sauce,” which led to the articulation of our new brand strategy.

What was the team composition?

Both Caroline McNally and Shannon Riordan were involved in the project from start to finish.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We have just recently launched our new brand, and so far it has received positive feedback from clients and employees alike. The perception of our new brand is exactly what we were going for.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Really good. We did weekly meetings to recieve project updates and provide feedback. Additionally, Caroline and Shannon were both very responsive in terms of responding to any inquiries of ours.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were really able to provide us a great look at ourselves, both objectively and subjectively, as well as help translate that information and our desire to evolve into something tangible my company could get behind. Communication with them was very good, and we also found them very easy to work with.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None at this time.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I oversee brand engagement and governance for a global tech company headquartered in San Jose, California.

What challenge were you trying to address with Global Brand Works?

We wanted to address internal challenges of creative brand governance and improve our overall brand ranking.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I briefed Global about our challenges and goals and they performed an audit of a number of our employees for greater understanding. Through their research and findings, they helped us develop a strategy around brand governance, which led to a curriculum for workshops and education modules rolled out internally. They applied their strategy within our set budget and provided us with thorough information to report back to our senior executives, communicating data and financial proof points supporting the importance of such work.

What is the team composition?

I worked directly with their founders, Shannon and Caroline.

How did you come to work with Global Brand Works?

A colleague of mine had worked with them previously and recommended them. I liked that they had a lot of experience with large corporations and an understanding of the challenges those corporations face when it comes to disseminating information internally.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around July 2016 and the work is ongoing. There are so many components to it that it's hard to set an end date as we continue to grow and evolve.

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

There's been a significant uptake of internal engagement within the company. Over 90% of employees understand and engage with the brand.

Our global ranking has also improved from a brand perspective. They've helped create a new way of engagement that never existed before—that's been huge.

How did Global Brand Works perform from a project management standpoint?

They're very responsive and organized when it comes to tracking budgets. They continue to deliver great work under mounting pressure from our team. I appreciate their level of collaboration and can-do attitude.

Caroline and Shannon complement each other perfectly. Shannon is quick, tactical, and nimble, while Caroline is very diplomatic, wise, and good at explaining the big picture.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We refer to them as our ninjas, because they're so agile. In large companies, it can be very difficult to get things like this moving, but Shannon and Caroline have the depth of experience in this industry to pull it off. They're very creative and flexible in their approach and have great relationship building skills. They feel like a part of our team and have been proactive in producing great work throughout the relationship.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the co-founders of the Human Rights Measurement Initiative. We’re a globally-distributed, nonprofit organization that produces measures to track the human rights performance of countries.

What challenge were you trying to address with Global Brand Works?

We needed branding and a name for our organization.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I initially had a discovery call with Caroline and Shannon (Partners and Co-Founders, Global Brand Works) where I explained our initiative. They then set up some calls with other team members and researched the branding of similar organizations, producing a short document that basically summarized what we are pretty accurately.

They developed our brand from the very beginning, reviewing the purpose of our initiative. From that point, we started the logo development in which their designer came up with several logo design options. We picked a couple of them to refine, ending up with a very short list, and eventually chose the one we wanted to go with.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Caroline and Shannon, as well as someone who helped with names. There were other people contributing to the work, but I didn’t engage with them directly.

How did you come to work with Global Brand Works?

I knew Shannon through mutual friends. At the time, we didn’t have much funding, but I contacted her to see if they would be able to help us. We set up a call as she wanted to know a little more about the project. She spoke to Caroline about it and they decided to do the work pro bono.

How much have you invested in them?

The value of their work was between $30,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from February–April 2017.

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

Since launching our website with their branding, we’ve attracted more philanthropic support from international organizations. Everyone who sees our branding thinks it is good and we have had a lot of positive anecdotal feedback.

How did Global Brand Works perform from a project management standpoint?

They were fantastic, easy to work with, and met their deadlines. Since the project ended, I’ve followed up regarding little things such as little tweaks to our website and they’ve given us really good feedback.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I really like the way they work. They have a real seriousness but also a friendliness that goes with it. They’re also very approachable and smart.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything. It was a wonderful experience.