“It was really about capturing where we are today and where we want to go, and finding a way to more easily communicate that—and also in this beautiful, thematic way through content strategy. Just having the intent and thoughtfulness; what’s the why behind your rebrand is super important to consider.”—Rachel Formaro
In this #ContentChat recap, Erika Heald is joined by Collabry Founder Rachel Formaro and Chief Brand Officer Jenny Cronin to discuss how content strategy informed Blu Pagoda’s rebrand to Collabry. They explain how they knew it was time to rebrand and what it took to bring Collabry to life.
Watch the entire conversation on YouTube or read through the highlights below.
Rebranding for Growth: How Collabry’s Content Strategy Drove Its Rebrand
Blu Pagoda’s content naturally evolved as the agency grew. A content audit confirmed this evolution and showed the opportunity to reposition the brand.
“When you think about content strategy, it’s all about communicating your who, what, and why. And so, with Jenny coming on board, it gave me a bit of freedom to say I’m okay starting from scratch. What would you do from a content strategy standpoint that could potentially reflect in a brand?”—Rachel Formaro
“The conventional wisdom is don’t rebrand because you’re bored. But we really had evolved in 10 years, and where we’d evolved, you could see it when I did the content audit. It was about community. It was about our thoughts. It was about our thought leadership and our people. And so we’d sort of, in a way, started behaving like a company with a different name.”—Jenny Cronin
Rachel founded the company, but she attracted a diverse team that was also integral to its success. Looking toward the future, the organization needed a brand that was no longer associated solely with Rachel’s initial vision.
“How we approached it was: How do we take what’s already happening, how do we take the thing that has catalyzed already and give it a name that’s intelligible, or at least doesn’t make people go, wait, what? That was our first goal. And the content strategy became the framework in which we were able to talk about it.”—Jenny Cronin
“I love how Jenny was able to do a content audit and really see how things had changed over time. Because it went from being Rachel talking about her values and she ran what he wanted to do as an organization, to now you have all these different people and their voices and their perspectives that are part of the content.”—Erika Heald
“This is all posturing for what the next 10 years looks like. How do we help our operations and everything else streamline to deliver on this promise we’re making to ourselves and each other and our clients and communities?”—Jenny Cronin
Collaborating with a Branding Agency: The Key to a Successful Rebrand
Rachel and Jenny partnered with Third Rail Creative for the rebrand, because they share similar brand values.
“We knew that we didn’t want to do it ourselves because that would just be a complete echo chamber; I’m not sure how much progress or creativity we would have brought forth. I had met Bryan Branam at Third Rail Creative quite some time ago, and we serve some clients in common. When Jenny and I started talking about this, I immediately thought of Third Rail Creative, because I feel like we share a lot of values with them.”—Rachel Formaro
“They asked us a lot of really great questions. I mean, simple things like what utensil would you be? What music would you be? It led to discussions that were very enlightening, and we had to make a decision; we weren’t sure if we wanted to be really folksy and homespun or have a little more polish. Not unlike a sort of therapy session of how do you want to show up? They led us through that in such a great and productive way, and we ended up with something that we could never have done without the additive insight.”—Jenny Cronin
Lessons Learned: Top Tips for Small Businesses Considering a Rebrand
Start with your content foundation and map out your priority items.
“It doesn’t all have to be done at once. There are some things that had to be done—the website, our socials—but we just had a really long list of of current assets. And being from a content strategy, you’re like, who are the audiences, what are the channels, and what are the messages on each one? So that sort of already existed, and we just divided and conquered.”—Jenny Cronin
“We used a project management system, [and we said] phase two we’re going to do all of our internal documents. But we knew what had to happen first.”—Jenny Cronin
“Being able to plan a road map for the timing and taking the pressure off where we could [was major]. And I am still, frankly, amazed at how quickly we were able to do it.”—Rachel Formaro
Address the internal communications element.
“We brought along the internal consultants along with it, because they felt a huge affinity for Blu Pagoda. We actually had a Blu Pagoda Slack channel where you could write things that you were going to miss. We made it clear that you weren’t having to never speak of this again. It wasn’t that kind of thing. It was a thank you.”—Jenny Cronin
“You would not believe how frequently I hear from folks that they basically found out about their company rebrand the same time that the public did. Which is terrible, right?”—Erika Heald
Create your new brand descriptor statement.
“How do you explain this to people? We gave them boilerplate content to put on their socials, or as they’re talking to their parents, or whatever, to use the same words. It sounds so silly, but we didn’t really have a codified way of explaining what it is we did.”—Jenny Cronin
“We say: Collabry is a consulting and communications collective (important word) of experienced professionals—we don’t like seasoned because that sounds like we’re going to eat them—who deliver results with empathetic expertise.”—Jenny Cronin
“Every time we’re brought in to do a social media audit, one of the very first things we always recommend is that they take the time to write that core description of who you are and what you do. Because if you don’t, it means you end up having all of these folks out there talking about your brand differently, which then causes confusion.”—Erika Heald
Explain the change to clients, including what it means for them.
“We brought along our clients. We sent them notes ahead of time telling them what was going to happen. We didn’t want anyone to be surprised.”—Jenny Cronin
“Thinking about the different audiences and even sub-audiences within that—our partners, our long-term clients, our prospects—and how we introduce this concept; it is really just a gift that we get to have this discussion. And then we layer on it with other content pieces we’re doing.”—Jenny Cronin
Rebranding can be more affordable than you might think.
“Don’t let fear of what you think the cost is going to be stop you. I can tell you; it’s not as crazy as we thought it was going to be. It was very reasonable and worth every penny for how it allowed us to be in and a part of the process with people that we trusted, that had the creativity that I know I couldn’t have gotten to.”—Rachel Formaro
Invest in tech talent to support the transition.
“Things like updating email addresses and platforms and all of that is not the most fun. There are lots of tests and testing to make sure it’s working properly. Having a little bit of tech support is definitely something that, if I were to ever do it again, I put a little bit more emphasis on.”—Rachel Formaro
Be ready to let go.
“We humans tend to get very precious about something that we feel this affinity for. But I really think in this process, letting go of some of that and coming to something even better was a big life lesson. It was a great business lesson, and we landed in the right place.”—Jenny Cronin
More Learnings from the Conversation
Listen to the full recording for more insights, including:
- Why Rachel founded Blu Pagoda (1:20)
- How the team decided on a new name (12:10)
- How a rebrand is an opportunity to strengthen client relationships (28:43)
- Which tools and resources supported the rebrand (37:46)
