Building a culture around a new brand
Brand Positioning & Culture Transformation | Industrial Real Estate Firm
I worked with this client first to build their brand, then re-engaged for a full-scale culture transformation, embedding it into their internal culture and employee behaviors.
Background
A private equity firm brought together 15 portfolio companies through M&A under a new name, creating the biggest industrial real estate firm no one had ever heard of.
Ask
Create a singular brand identity that reflected their ambition to become a different kind of landlord (than the traditionally adversarial landlord/tenant relationship).
Building the Brand
Problem
In industrial real estate most owners believe every square foot is created equal. When asked, no one could offer a genuine differentiator of the space or portfolio.
Insight
Every business owner imagines their warehouse as a space to grow. But we’re the first landlord to think that way.
Positioning
Space to grow.
We get to know your business to make your space a space to grow.
My role
Designed and conducted research (primary & desk)
Developed creative territories and pressure tested with creative teams
Designed and facilitated 2-day client working session
Creative outputs
Brand identity refresh
Manifesto video
Designed company-wide town hall to introduce the new brand
Ask
Reorient from a culture of “tough landlord” to “helpful partner.” (A big one, given deeply-rooted industry beliefs).
My role
Served as lead consultant on all solutions
Managed client relationship
Facilitated strategy sessions & workshops
Culture Transformation
Key unlocks from the research
Brokers create a natural gulf between the landlords and tenants, and a missed opportunity for landlords to learn more about how their customers use their space.
Because of the e-commerce boom, business owners actually saw their real estate as a lever for growth (for the first time in a long time). They were open to expertise from anyone who could give it.
This company was interested in selling more than space. They wanted to get to know customers and develop value-add solutions that could help them get the most out of their real estate.
The Work
We supported this culture transformation over a 3-year period, which included many pivots and adaptations from the original roadmap. Here are a few highlights:
Wrote pithy, memorable operating principles to create internal shorthand for a new way of thinking about customers
Designed and facilitated multiple leader strategy sessions and offsite experiences to help leaders across different disciplines have the lightbulb moment about why customer experience mattered, and why we couldn’t just pay it lip service..
Created a 2-day interactive workshop experience (complete with custom bingo cards, customer simulations, and more) tailored to both customer-facing and corporate employees.
As new learnings emerged, we consulted on internal policy changes so that employee behavior reinforced (rather than contradicting) the brand.
Facilitated a capstone experience at an offsite with over 600 attendees.
Developed evergreen employee resources (like a printed Field Guide) and manager resources (like meeting activities and nudges) to make sure behaviors endured, and conversation continued.
Created a self-guided onboarding experience for all new employees
