DeSantis Breindel Shortlisted for Four Transform Awards North America 2020

We are honored to announce that DeSantis Breindel has been shortlisted for multiple categories in the sixth annual Transform Awards North America. The Transform Awards recognize exemplary brand development work across strategy, creative and execution. These nominations demonstrate once again how our collaborative approach to building brands with clients drive meaningful change and deliver measurable competitive advantage.

The work we’ve done with clients has been shortlisted for the following four categories:

Best Creative Strategy: Littler

One of the leading labor and employment law firms in the world, Littler came to DeSantis Breindel for help articulating a differentiated story in a crowded marketplace. DeSantis Breindel developed a new brand strategy, messaging, and design language that emphasized the way Littler’s culture of innovation and investment in technology for the sake of clients enabled them to deliver for clients, staying ahead of the pack with new ways of working, and shaping the entire industry in the meantime.

Best Brand Evolution: Thornton Tomasetti

Known as a preeminent structural engineering firm, Thornton Tomasetti needed help evolving their brand in order to meaningfully encompass an expanded service offering that spanned well beyond their roots. DeSantis Breindel built off of the strong elements of the firm’s existing brand and created a new brand strategy, messaging, and visual identity system built around the concept of “Here’s how,” a mindset that sees every challenge as an opportunity to redefine what’s possible. The strategy provided a unifying story to all of the disparate offerings of the firm, and gave everyone in the firm a way to talk about the Thornton Tomasetti difference they’d always known to be true, but had never had the words to articulate.

Best Strategic or Creative Development of a New Brand: Vicinity Energy

A French-based multinational organization sold off its North American energy districts to a private equity firm, and the new entity needed to quickly establish a strong and differentiated identity in the marketplace. Our research revealed that district energy users were most concerned with resiliency: the ability to ensure always-on energy no matter what the situation. We developed a new brand strategy, messaging, and design language, as well as a new name— Vicinity Energy. The new name and messaging — “Connect with us. Count on us. Thrive alongside us.”— emphasized both the highly localized nature of the company’s district energy networks and the close relationship and responsive service customers can expect to receive from Vicinity employees.

Best Corporate Rebrand Following a Merger or Acquisition: Quaker Houghton

When their merger was announced, Quaker Chemical and Houghton International were both global leaders in industrial fluids. The newly combined organization came to DeSantis Breindel for help with rebranding as it struggled to translate the merger — a valuable financial transaction for stakeholders — into a resonate value proposition for clients and employees. DeSantis Breindel developed a new brand strategy, name, and messaging built around a simple but powerful concept: “Forward Together.” The new brand pivoted the company from a product focus to a solutions focus built around the knowledge and ingenuity of their people’s expertise.


DeSantis Breindel has previously been awarded a Transform Awards Silver prize in 2019 in the category of “Best Corporate Rebrand Following a Merger or Acquisition” for its work with OneSpan.

The winners of this year’s Transform Awards North America will be announced at a virtual awards event on December 2, 2020 and can be watched on the Transform Awards website at 5:15PM EST.