CSL: Rebranding “The Biggest Company No One’s Ever Heard Of"

In October 2021, the head of digital communications and branding at the Australian biopharmaceutical conglomerate CSL Limited (CSL), was tasked with a strategic rebranding exercise. By August 2022, he and other stakeholders felt a sense of pride and satisfaction at how quickly the rebranding initiatives had been completed. CSL felt that it had achieved the desired brand associations and met its targeted brand net promoter score performance. Looking forward, the company’s executives needed to outline an implementation plan to ensure CSL’s brand positioning—its key differentiator—to ensure that CSL outpaced respected competitors and that the CSL brand connected with the company’s product brands at each customer touchpoint—all while maintaining trust and attracting the best researchers possible.

This case is intended for students at undergraduate and graduate levels in a wide variety of courses that address core marketing, brand management, and general strategy. The case can be positioned after students have been exposed to the concepts of business models and value propositions. It outlines the decisions surrounding the rebranding of a business-to-business (B2B) company during its transition from a group of many independent biopharmaceutical brands to an international sustainable, science-driven organization. It presents the learning experienced by CSL and describes how a major rebranding exercise reinforced the corporate strategy process, how this was implemented, and how the tracking system measured progress and success. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:<br><br><ul><li>Evaluate how CSL designed, implemented, and tracked a strong rebranding effort, in parallel with a strategy development process, after a strategic acquisition.</li><li>Map out a process for a marketing project that engages direct stakeholders within a company and dozens of partners outside the organization.</li><li>Explain the implications of rebranding during a strategic corporate transformation. </li><li>Analyze key challenges in B2B rebranding, including connecting the rebranding to strategy and corporate culture, securing executive-level approval, measuring brand impact, building the brand, redesigning the brand architecture, and engaging internal and external stakeholders.</li><li>Describe tensions between headquarters and subsidiaries in a global corporation.</li></ul>

• Rebranding, positioning, brand identity