Renaming an
Established, Successful
Corporate Brand
Ryan Rieches
Founding Partner,
Strategy
Jason Rose
Senior Vice President of
Business Development
for Inovalon
Naming a company, like naming a baby, is an
emotional process. It is even more emotional and
complicated when a successful and established
company is renamed.
Jason Rose, Senior Vice President of
Business Development for Inovalon, the
new name for MedAssurant. Inovalon, a
leading provider of data-driven healthcare
solutions, works with the industry’s
largest healthcare insurers. Its products
and services touch more than 285,000
physicians, 195,000 clinical facilities and
120 million Americans. Rose spoke with
Ryan Reiches, CEO and Co-Founder of
RiechesBaird about the rebranding and
renaming process.
Rieches
What made you decide to rebrand?
Rose
We did a soft launch about 1 ½ months
before we formally launched the
name with the external audience.
We announced through a live
videoconference, teleconference for
all of our employees nationwide what
the name it was going to be and why
we were changing it.
Rose
Inovalon, formerly MedAssurant,
had many years of great growth and
expansion since its inception in 1998.
But we needed better insight into our
brand and how it’s received across this
growing healthcare and healthcare
IP market. We also needed to better
align our brand with our products.
We saw how we could be confused
with Medtronic, Medco, Assurance
or Assurant, MedVentive, et cetera. It
made sense to re-brand and rename
the organization.
Rieches
What advice you can give others
considering a similar move?
Rose
It is critically important that the
entire executive leadership team be
involved. It isn’t just about the name
of the company but also the strategic
positioning that the organization is
going to be building upon in the future.
It is also important that everyone
knows it is an open environment and
that all ideas will be put on the table.
We have different perspectives. You
also have to trust the process.
Rieches
What was your process of organizing
and planning for this name change to
occur on every brand touch point?
Rose
We did a full inventory of everywhere
we were using the name and the
logo and the brand. We budgeted
for everything in advance. We had
team meetings with my colleagues
and the COO, CTO and Chief Product
Officer to make sure that they were
coordinated with me. Moving into
operational stage, we had the project
plans done and had everything into
our sprint planning for our agile IT
software development for our different
portals and letter generations and
different communication portals. All
that advanced planning was really
critical in the success of how we were
able to execute.
The soft launch helped us build a
bridge and get all the people that
needed to be involved in the process
and behind it, as brand ambassadors.
It also helped in updating portals,
letters, client communications,
websites and brochures. That was
absolutely the key to our success. It
helped build momentum into the hard
launch.
Rieches
Can you describe the steps you went
through on the internal launch?
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Renaming an Established, Successful Corporate Brand
Rieches
How did you launch the
brand externally?
Rose
We contacted our key clients at the
same time as our employees and let
them know we were launching this
new name and the dates of the
launch. We told them how we would
work through all the various pieces
now and in the future under the new
name. We setup FAQs, email box,
and had a client services team
engaged with all of our clients and
physician partners nationwide to
make sure that they were well aware
of what was to happen.
From a media perspective, we
attempted to almost overwhelm the
industry and help them understand
that our name has changed and
we wanted to quickly get people
comfortable. We had a very largescale multimedia event in Salt Lake
City with America’s Health Insurance
Plan, the largest health insurance
consortium in the country. We had a
large party, new booth and did what I
call a “shock and awe” across all the
print, advertisement and media outlets.
We had a full page ad in The Wall
Street Journal, The Economist, on the
websites and all the various healthcare
specific vehicles, an email blast and
multimedia press releases.
Rieches
Any final thoughts or insights to share?
Rose
I would say trust the process. Find a
process that works. Being open to
breaking ground and breaking barriers
and get your executive leadership
team involved.
Key Takeaways
Rieches recommends
Rose recommends
oConducting exhaustive research:
Dive in to really understand the
industry and its players. Also tap
into insights from the executive
leadership team.
oPlanning ahead: Don’t leave
anything to chance—set
strategy and budget well before
the undertaking.
oUnderstanding change is an
emotional process: Don’t
underestimate how challenging
renaming and rebranding can be
for everyone involved—leadership,
employees and customers.
oTailoring message to external
audience: During the launch,
make sure you tailor your
message to match your audience,
be it customers, suppliers, and
the media
oInvolving executive leadership:
Make sure the C-suite is part of
the process
oTrusting the process: There
are a lot of moving parts to
rebranding and renaming. Bring
in outside experts.
Ryan Rieches
Ryan Rieches is a founding partner of BrandingBusiness and a respected authority on B2B branding and business building. He brings an
inspired, creative mind to his work as a brand strategist and to conversations with thought leaders.
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