A boutique brand strategy agency
Global Brand Works is a small but mighty branding agency. Founded by Caroline McNally and Shannon Riordan, Global Brand Works specializes in translating Brand Strategy into Brand Actualization – in other words, we help clients bring the brand to life throughout an organization, internally and externally. Whether you need to launch, recharge, redesign, or completely reinvent your brand, our experienced leadership and custom approach will get you there.
From start-ups to established global brands, an aligned organization delivers a consistent and compelling brand experience and a shared sense of purpose, which produces better business results. Our specialties are:
Brand Platform
Brand Architecture
Employer Brand
Internal Brand Activation
Design (logo and visual identity system)
Messaging and Brand Story
4 Languages
- English
- Spanish
- Portuguese
- French
1 Timezone
- PST
headquarters
Brand Management for PayPal
the project
"They were personable, willing to listen, and committed to our success."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
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.
Focus
Portfolio
PayPal, SFMOMA, Equinix, Kettle Brand Potato Chips, Appnovation, LifeLock, Bank of the West, American Express, GoGreen Agriculture, Charles Schwab, HRMI, Pro Unlimited, Sutherland, Veritas, State Street Global Advisors, Yodlee, Vantiv, Paychex, Vesta, Xpanse by Xponent, Aliro by Lendkey, Monticelli, Newsbreak, Katie Raffetto Interior Design
Equinix: Development of the Employer Brand
Development of the Employer Brand entailed extensive global quantative and qualitiative insights, competitive report, internal surveys, interviews, and workshops. We delivered talent acquisition values, benefit pillars, personas and messaging, which is now live on their new carreers page.
Here is a summary case study of the project:
https://globalbrandworks.com/work/defining-the-employer-brand-for-equinix/
PayPal - Internal Brand Activation
PayPal is one of Global Brand Works' biggest and most consistent retainer clients. Initiatives include: Brand Governance, Value Proposition Messaging, Brand Story, Internal Communications, Internal Brand Training, Onboarding Content Development, Change Management, and Naming. Here are some examples of our work:
https://globalbrandworks.com/work/a-scrolleytale-about-the-future-of-work/
https://globalbrandworks.com/work/redesigning-a-global-onboarding-exercise-for-paypal/
https://globalbrandworks.com/work/naming-messaging-and-promotion-of-a-new-internal-product-development-tool-for-paypal-teams-panorama/
SFMOMA Brand and Culture Activation
Brand Strategy, Internal Brand Engagement, Research (Internal and External) Strategic Consulting, Internal Brand Values Training, Advertising Creative. To quote our client, we created the museum's "top performing digital campaign," which helped the museum reopen after the pandemic. More detail at the following links:
https://globalbrandworks.com/work/our-top-performing-creative-helps-sfmoma-reopen/
https://globalbrandworks.com/work/all-voices-matter-an-example-from-our-work-with-sfmoma/
Creating a new brand - Xpanse
For this disruptor brand we developed everything from scratch: research, brand architecture, name, logo, logo animatin, and visual identity.
Copy and paste the below link for the full story:
https://globalbrandworks.com/work/introducing-xpanse-a-brand-built-from-scratch-which-is-disrupting-an-established-category/
Developing a brand from scratch: Aliro by Lendkey
We created this brand from scratch: Research, Brand Architecture, Naming, Logo Design, Animaiton, Visual Identity, and Guidelines.
Find the full story here.
Malwarebytes - Visual Identity Refresh
When the team at MalwareBytes approached us, they were scaling fast and they knew that growing the brand was just as important as growing the company.
The brand stood for good things like trust and quality in people’s minds but it had not been showing up consistently. The brand initiative was not an effort to redefine who they were, rather, to put a sharper focus on how they looked, what they said, and how they said it.
Kettle Uprooted - Naming and Visual Identity
Kettle brand chips needed brand support leading up to the launch of their line of vegetable chips. Global Brand Works provided not only the lighthearted and memorable name, but also the brand's architecture, logo design, and packaging design. Find a bit more on our blog:
https://globalbrandworks.com/work/kettle-uprooted/
Sutherland - Rebrand
Sutherland came to Global Brand Works to help take their corpporate branding to the next level. Global Brand Works provided Brand Strategy, Customer Insights, Logo Redesign, Visual Identity and Guidelines, Brand Book, PowerPoint Template, and Business Card Design for the brand.
Find the full story here.
Developing the brand for Livin' Quality
For this "brand in a box" client, we developed the brand strategy, messaging, logo, visual identity, and guidelines.
Find the full story here.
Appnovation - Rebrand
Research, Brand Strategy, Messaging, Brand Architecture, Logo Redesign, Visual Identity & Guidelines
Find the full story here.
Reviews
the project
Branding for Financial Services Company
“They inherently knew what our brand needed and what it would take to succeed.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the senior marketing manager for Credit Sesame. We provide consumers credit scores and financial consultation. I’m responsible for overseeing our user acquisition campaigns.
What challenge were you trying to address with Global Brand Works?
We compete against a much larger firm for the same market share. Our main challenge was creating a distinctive brand identity to stand out in the marketplace. Furthermore, the company’s various departments rarely collaborate and usually design their own visuals. We wanted to initiate a branding effort that would allow experimentation but would also yield a unified marketing strategy.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Global first helped us establish a new brand identity. They have a standard template they use for most brands but were able to customize that to better fit our needs and budget. They presented an initial proposal and we selected a few components we thought represented our company well. Global then conducted extensive research to further refine the brand. They engaged a listening tour of our employees where they interviewed executive-level staff and various department leads. This was to gather feedback on what was great about the company as well as what could be improved.
Then, they researched our current users and issued surveys to non-users to measure brand awareness of the general public. They used all that research to create a second presentation focused on our brand story. Then, they led employees from different departments through a workshop of branding exercises. After the workshop, their presentation went through several more rounds of review and revisions.
The final deliverable was a concise and thorough brand strategy that covered our identity, mission, key values, and brand promise. Ultimately, Global was able to take thousands of data points and turn that information into a few simple words or messages. We’re currently negotiating with them to deliver the second part of the branding effort, where they would design new visuals and marketing materials.
What is the team composition?
I worked directly with both Shannon (Co-founder, Global Brand Works) and Caroline (Co-founder, Global Brand Works).
How did you come to work with Global Brand Works?
We found them through LinkedIn ProFinder. We put out an RFP and interviewed five different companies. We spoke to Shannon and Caroline and they really stood out. We hired them because their price matched what we were looking for and they have a strong background in the financial services industry. As a result, they’re well connected and even happened to know some of our executive-level staff.
How much have you invested with them?
We spent around $40,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
The branding project took place from November 2017–March 2018.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
I can’t share any metrics because we haven’t yet put the brand identity in place. However, nearly everyone from the CEO to the department teams agrees with Global’s findings and values the insight. The lack of brand cohesiveness has been a company issue for a while, so we’re happy to finally address it.
How did Global Brand Works perform from a project management standpoint?
They’ve done this for other companies, so they were extremely organized since day one. Giving us a tracking calendar and communicating regularly kept me informed about the project’s progression. I met with Shannon and Caroline once or twice a week and we emailed each other constantly. Their experience allowed them to quickly take control of the project without much assistance from us. They usually completed tasks well-before expected due dates.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They’re well-connected within our industry and knew the landscape without needing us to explain everything. They inherently knew what our brand needed and what it would take to succeed. Shannon and Caroline are insightful and possess mentor-like personalities. We also appreciated how open they were to collaborating and getting our staff involved throughout the process. Other agencies we considered preferred to work independently and deliver a product without getting our feedback.
Are there any areas they could improve?
Some of the deliverables had minor spelling or grammatical errors.
the project
Rebranding & Logo Design for Finishing Trade Organization
"The logo redesign establishes us in the forefront of the construction industry."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I'm the director of marketing and member services for Northern California Allied Trades. We’re a trade organization representing contractors in commercial and industrial painting, as well as commercial glass glazing companies.
What challenge were you trying to address with Global Brand Works?
We needed help with a rebranding effort. We’d internally decided on the branding strategy but wanted to hire a firm to create new logos.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They created three different logos to support our branding identity. We have the main umbrella organization and then the two professional trade associations underneath. Global Brand Works came up with a family system of logos so that new logos can be added if we do ever expand in the future. So if additional trade associations come underneath the umbrella of Northern California allied trades, then we can add a new logo in a way that visually belongs to the existing set.
The construction industry moves quite slowly, and there’s a lot of resistance to change. Instead of having Global Brand Works help with the entire marketing strategy, I could initially get the board of directors to agree to hire them only to create new logos. Once the logos were complete, I got the green light to use them to create a brand story.
What is the team composition?
I work directly with both Caroline and Shannon (co-owners, Global Brand Works), but mostly with Shannon.
How did you come to work with Global Brand Works?
They were a recommendation from a digital marketing company.
How much have you invested with them?
To date, we’ve spent around $20,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in September 2017 and we're currently increasing our scope of work to include the brand story.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We're still rolling out our new logos through a soft launch, but they've really put us in the new age of the industry. The logo redesign, and how the family system of logos work together, establishes us in the forefront of the construction industry. They portray a very forward-thinking image that’s more attractive to the younger generation.
How did Global Brand Works perform from a project management standpoint?
They’ve been flexible in working with us even though we've had to do things slightly backwards. They're extremely responsive via email or text, especially when there's an urgent matter that needs their immediate attention. They also made a presentation to our board of directors, which we really appreciated.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They really listen to what the client is asking for. They over-deliver, and everything they've produced so far is excellent.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I don't think so. We haven't really had any challenges.
the project
Branding for HR Solutions Provider
"Their ability to quickly brainstorm ideas and plans, without a long-delayed statement of work and contracting process."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
Oasis| a Paychex Company is a PEO organization providing human resource solutions to small businesses. I was the President.
For what projects/services did your company hire Global Brand Works, and what were your goals?
While trying to bring together what had been 14 acquisitions combined into one PEO, I was trying to inspire around a vision and Purpose that aligned the teams and gave focus externally vs internally. My goals were to inspire, engage, and align all employees around what we do for clients and society in general.
How did you select this vendor?
They were referred to me by the CMO of Kelly Services and after a call and some quick brainstorming, we agreed to move forward.
Describe the scope of their work in detail, including any steps and the final deliverables.
The majority of the scope was idea generation, content creation, and project management. My head of change management carried the project forward once I approved the plan and this continued after I left in December, 2021. I spoke with her recently and she said the work was phenomenal and the new leader loved it.
How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?
Two
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
I left in December, 2021 before full launch.
Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.
I left the project management to my head of change management.
What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?
Their ability to quickly brainstorm ideas and plans, without a long-delayed statement of work and contracting process.
Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?
None
With their seminars rated highly for usefulness, effectiveness, enjoyment, content, and purpose, Global Brand Works thoroughly impressed the client. They have remained empathetic to their partner's dynamic timelines during the engagement and consistently offer creative solutions.