Heikki Lanckriet (00:00)
when we first started off, we were thinking like, well, we'll do a complete rebrand and, you know, like nothing will stay. And then as we were going through the process, we quite rapidly realized that she still wanted links with like some of the old messaging and some of the old images. what we in the end ended up with was like an evolution of what we had into a new space. And I think that's the right approach
Joachim Eeckhout (00:21)
Welcome to a new episode of the Science Marketer Podcast. Today, we are talking about what most marketers fear, the rebranding of a company. join us today, we have Heikki Lanckriet CEO of 4basebio. A company who just rebranded in July, so it's a perfect timing to discuss this topic. So hi, Heikki. Welcome to the show.
Heikki Lanckriet (00:40)
Thank you and nice to meet you, Joachim
Joachim Eeckhout (00:42)
first maybe a bit of background on your company before talking about marketing. could you briefly introduce 4basebio for listeners who are not familiar with your company?
Heikki Lanckriet (00:52)
Yeah, sure. So 4basebio is a fairly young biotech. We're based out in Cambridge in the UK. And we're not a typical kind of drug developer, right? So we supply products, we make innovative products that are supplied into drug developers who make ATMPs, so viral vector kind of therapies, cell therapies, mRNA-type based therapies or vaccines. So we make those synthetic nucleic acids that people use in the production and manufacture of these advanced medicines. And we help.
accelerate their programs.
Joachim Eeckhout (01:22)
so what led you to decide that you had to do a rebranding?
Heikki Lanckriet (01:26)
the company kind of started five years ago, like I just mentioned, and in the early phases of the company development, we weren't really client focused, you know, so we, you know, raise some capital, and we were really more focused around the investor base and the website was designed around the investment case of what we were trying to do and the opportunity we were feeding into. And as the company matured and the platform matured, and, you know, we started really thinking about
commercializing our products, the time came to think about rebranding the website and really focusing it on our clients. And hence the messaging had to completely change. And we also wanted to think about the best way to interact with our customers. hence a total rebrand was kind of decided upon.
Joachim Eeckhout (02:08)
if I understand the objective is really like pivot from, let's say, a classical drug development kind of biotech to more like service provider type.
Heikki Lanckriet (02:19)
Yeah,
we were never a classical drug development company, right? So we were always going to be a provider of solutions into this space. But pre 2024, say we weren't really commercially active, it was really like an R &D company developing the platform, setting up the capabilities, getting our GMP certification, etc, etc. And, you know, once we reach those milestones that we go like, okay, well, now we can really reach out to the wider audience and get
some commercial traction. That's the point where we decided that our website wasn't really in line with where the company was at and wasn't focused. The messages weren't focused on the clients, they were focused on investors and that needed changing. So the reprint was in the context of all of that.
Joachim Eeckhout (02:59)
And how did you approach the rebranding process? Did you work with an agency
Heikki Lanckriet (03:04)
Yeah, so mean, back in the last year, we did a fairly substantial fundraise. So, you know, we brought some new capital into the business and that capital really allowed us to bring some talent into the business as well. So we hired our own kind of marketing team that could help us drive some of this forward. So we were lucky in a way that we were able to do quite a lot of it internally. But of course, it's still a fairly small team. you know.
for the right things. also used consultants to help us accelerate and provide the experience and the guidance on where we were lacking it internally, essentially.
Joachim Eeckhout (03:37)
Was web development, for instance, something you externalized? Yeah, I think that's usual for many, I mean, you don't have to bring this kind of capacity in house So I think that's how most companies work. And how did it go? Because this is also interesting, like the experience with working with the agency. Was it smooth? Were you happy with the way it worked?
Heikki Lanckriet (03:41)
That was externalized exactly. Yeah.
Correct.
Yeah, I mean, we had a few hiccups along the way. mean, to be honest, it wasn't really the agency's fault. You know, like they had some personal issues within the agency as well. And so we had some personal changes midway through the project, which were unforeseen and really couldn't have, you know, I'm not blaming anybody for that happening. was like medical things that happened and, you have to deal with this. we've had our own hiccups along the way. But I think if you plan ahead and you
you have a good relationship with your partners, you can kind of deal together with kind of these unforeseen circumstances that inherently will occur in most projects. So, you know, I think the team, our own internal team had selected good partners, with flexibility and with creativity to deal with the problems that we faced along the way. And that allowed us to really deliver the project on time and on budget as well. those were kind of the key criteria that we were trying to work towards is.
get the project finished in time. We wanted to get this released in early July. And we also wanted to, of course, stay within our allocated budgets and both of those objectives have been met despite some of the kind of setbacks that we had along the way.
Joachim Eeckhout (05:08)
How did it take for the rebranding process before the launch?
Heikki Lanckriet (05:13)
Yeah, it was pretty much a six month process. So we started at the beginning of the year and we completed it by middle of the year. And it's fairly intense, right? So because it requires quite a few of the stakeholders to participate in this because we wanted, of course, to get the buy-in from the board of directors, but also from other stakeholders within the company, whether that's the scientists and the platform development people, the commercial teams, et cetera, et cetera. So you want to get some wider buy-in on.
on the messaging and on the branding that you're proposing. So everybody feels part of the new kind of branding and the new process that we're going through. So that takes quite a lot of effort and quite a lot of management time from the marketing team to make sure that every kind of voice is heard and taken into account and to define the decision making process on where we went.
Joachim Eeckhout (05:57)
Can you briefly explain the biggest change in your branding? or kind of maybe the high level picture of your rebranding?
Heikki Lanckriet (06:06)
I think for us, was like, I mean, of course you look at the competitors and what the competitors are doing, right? And we wanted to stand out from the competitors. We didn't want to be another me to kind of website that looked like everybody else's website, but we also didn't want it to look crazy. Like, you know, where people would go like, my God, what does this represent? it still had to represent our values around quality, around innovation, et cetera, et cetera. So, and I think marrying those, those things up.
isn't straightforward, marrying up all the opinions around the table from the consultants, from the internal stakeholders and getting to consensus, I think that's the hard bit, because there isn't one solution that is correct. There's lots of different views that all have merits and finding the balance and where you want to go with these things is the challenge, I think, with all of this.
Joachim Eeckhout (06:55)
How did you align your long-term vision with this version of the rebranding?
Heikki Lanckriet (06:59)
Yeah, I think that's a good question. Because when we first started off, we were thinking like, well, we'll do a complete rebrand and, you know, like nothing will stay. And then as we were going through the process, we quite rapidly realized that she still wanted links with like some of the old messaging and some of the old images. You know, so what we in the end ended up with was like an evolution of what we had into a new space. And I think that's the right approach because that the longevity of something like that will be better. And also the
brand awareness and the recognition will be retained much better as well if you evolve from where you were rather than making complete breaks from what you already had. And I think that's definitely the process we'll continue taking going forward as well. Now we would expect this kind of rebranding exercise to have a lifetime and a life cycle, but then over time, you know, when we want to refresh, you we would like to probably think of what we have already and
how we can improve that to new market trends and new views around what other people are doing in the space as well. But I think we have a pretty good solid base now. We've got a quite unique, outstanding website with very unique colouring schemes that really stand out and allow us to really hang in people's minds. I think even the logo has been evolved quite nicely from like...
what was something quite factual into something a little bit more abstract, still with the roots into DNA as well. it kind of, you know, helps us with evolving the company. when we started off, we were very much a DNA company. Now we think of ourselves more as like nucleic acid companies. So like evolving that kind of logo alongside what the company represents, I think is the right thing to do. And I think, you know, for the next kind of five years, you know, we definitely know the path the company is on and we think the brand will.
and the imagery around this will reflect that. But of course, things change and you've got to keep an eye on it and it never stops. mean, branding is something that is fluid, is evolving and you just have to go with the flow and make sure that you keep in line with expectations and market trends.
Joachim Eeckhout (09:00)
Yeah, I've been analyzing a bit your website with the Web Archive comparing the version now and the previous version. I think your logo kept really like the original idea with more modern nuances. But the website looks much more modern. That's something I definitely can
Heikki Lanckriet (09:05)
Yeah.
Yeah, because I
think the web server was quite boring in the past, right? It was quite boring colors, you know, and it was fairly sterile, you know, if I can say so. think with the new colors, we're trying to bring energy into what we do and stand out more and modernize it much more. But it feeds into a lot of other materials as well, right? So these color schemes, when you use them into your PowerPoints or your Collaterals, et cetera, et cetera, you can make things stand out and pop out a lot more than what we could do in the past.
And I think that's really one of the big advantages of a rebrand. You know, it's not just about the website, it's about how it feeds into the wider collateral and the wider imagery that you can use to reach your clients, whether that's through swag or whether that's through presentations, you know, it all comes part and parcel of it. And making things stand out is helpful because, you have very little time when people pass by your booths and stuff like that, you need to capture them.
And I think that the color scheme and the marketing is part and parcel of grabbing that customer and having the opportunity to actually talk to them about your science and your product and your services.
Joachim Eeckhout (10:20)
That's something I really want to highlight because your color scheme, your brand identity creates also consistency through everything, every material, every kind of resources you share. And I think that's really important, especially for a commercial company like yours, to have this consistency, to create kind of an image that people can retain. As you said, like the color scheme
recognizable, it's nice choice, And it has an impact, it has more impact than we thought. Most of the time it's even like impacts we don't know, like we are biased by these kind of things. So now it's really good. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I it's really important.
Heikki Lanckriet (10:53)
Of course, they're colors matter, right? Colors matter. But I think you're
right. The consistency matters too, right? you know, I mean, when the company started up, you know, like a lot of it was done like, you know, piecemeal by different people, right? So as you would expect it in startup companies. So, you know, there wasn't a huge amount of consistency. mean, blue was kind of the recurrent theme throughout our branding, but there wasn't like proper rules and schemes that we were.
Joachim Eeckhout (11:07)
Yeah
Heikki Lanckriet (11:18)
adhering to and you could see lots of people would go to conferences and you'd have not necessarily the same kind of tones and imagery going through in the presentations. And I think that's something that we wanted to change. We wanted to bring that consistency, that level of professionality, quality to stand out in our materials, because ultimately we're providing a service and a product to our clients. And we want the quality of our materials, like marketing materials and our imagery.
to reflect the quality of the products that we offer to our clients as well. we do think it's important to make sure that the marketing evolves along with the company and reflects where the company is at.
Joachim Eeckhout (11:55)
Was the brand identity design also part of the agency work or is it something you fully have done internally?
Heikki Lanckriet (12:03)
We had some help with that, right? So we had some guidance around that, but ultimately a lot came from the internal stakeholders who kind of felt passionate about certain things around brand identity and what was important to the company and what we stood for. So it was driven by internal views and internal passion, but we had guidance from the agencies to kind of bring that process to a successful kind of ending.
Joachim Eeckhout (12:28)
I see many agencies combining web development with brand identity in one package because it makes sense. Like if you do one without the other, most of the time you end up having to redo something afterwards. So I think it's the best practice to do this as one big package of activity. And that's why it takes so long good choice.
Heikki Lanckriet (12:40)
That's right.
it's a process, You
need to take some time to digest things and not make rough decisions on designs or on directions. You know, you need to let it evolve and mature in your heads a little bit as well. And I think that's an important part of this, you know, and it brings everybody on board with the changes as well, by involving more people into that process.
Joachim Eeckhout (13:11)
I have seen on your website that now there is a blog and there are different content resources. Was this part of the previous version or is it something new?
Heikki Lanckriet (13:19)
No, it's not. It's
it's it's again, the previous version was not really focused on clients, right? So it's more, you know, it's that kind of change in what the website is supposed to do and what we want from the website. So we really want to engage with our clients much more effectively through our website. And hence we want to provide more content and provide more ability for them to interact with us as well or with peers within the within the kind of space as well.
Joachim Eeckhout (13:24)
Yeah.
Heikki Lanckriet (13:43)
So, I mean, we've taken the view that, you we want to have an open source website and provide access and to knowledge and information to people so that they come to us and see us as a resource, you know, because that, again, drives brand awareness and drives, you know, people's kind of comfort in that we are experts in our field and we know what we're talking about. So we feel that's a very important part of the website is providing that content and, you know,
guiding and teaching our clients about the progress in the space when it comes to nucleic acids and synthetic DNA in particular.
Joachim Eeckhout (14:17)
Do you have a of content marketing plan now for the future as well?
Heikki Lanckriet (14:21)
We
do, right? when the website launched, it was that kind of the bear case website where it had content, but we know there's a lot more content that we want to put out. And we work on that now. So phase one was getting the rebrand done and getting the kind of base case website launched. And now we have a content program to really release more information and more data into the website that we think will be relevant to our clients and really build on that kind of.
knowledge-based network within the website.
Joachim Eeckhout (14:52)
That's fantastic. I will be following the content. It's a good case study for the marketers. let's talk about the launch of the rebranding because you had to prepare it internally, but at some point you publish it, you communicate on it. So what was the plan? Like I've seen a press release, for instance. Was there anything else going along the launch?
Heikki Lanckriet (14:55)
Yeah, keeping an eye on that.
Yeah, so I mean for us it was making sure that people were aware of this, right? So and of course the press release is something that we did, but you know with our clients as well, like you know, we notified them about the new website and the new functionality within the website and also our ambitions around content on the website. So you know we had some personal interactions with clients around that as well.
Joachim Eeckhout (15:34)
this covered by special outlets for instance like media outlets or anything else like this?
Heikki Lanckriet (15:39)
I think the press release got picked up by quite a few people there. We're quite happy with that. We've had good pick up on that. I mean, it's of course different when you're news around very specific technical programmes or collaborations, etc. etc. That of course gets picked up very well too.
Joachim Eeckhout (15:42)
Yeah? good.
Heikki Lanckriet (16:00)
I was positively surprised on the positive uptake that we've had from that website release as well.
Joachim Eeckhout (16:07)
I think it's a topic everyone's intrigued about, so that's maybe why.
Heikki Lanckriet (16:10)
Yeah, it is. And I
mean, surprisingly for us as well, I mean, very out of the blue, one of our main competitors launched a website more or less at the same time as we launched our new website. So but, know, it was nice because people did the comps on both and, you know, we got some really positive feedback on our website. it made us feel good about ourselves. Yeah, exactly.
Joachim Eeckhout (16:29)
Yeah, that's good work.
So now we maybe six weeks after the launch, think, or something like this. Did you notice any early signs of impact?
Heikki Lanckriet (16:39)
Yeah,
it's positive, right? So definitely on the website, the traffic is up very substantially. And if we look at our Google Analytics, all of the KPIs are trending up. I mean, it's still early days, of course, but I think it does seem to be working with client engagement and driving traffic. So I suspect as we continue to feed more content into the website as well, valuable content into the website,
where people start seeing the website as a resource point rather than a sales tool. I think that will help us with maintaining and increasing the traffic levels into the website.
Joachim Eeckhout (17:15)
Are you your traffic with any paid activities or is it purely organic at the moment?
Heikki Lanckriet (17:20)
We
do a little of that, but in fairness, we don't do huge amounts of Google Pay and et cetera, et We really focus more on the website and SEO around the website, et cetera, et cetera, to make it work. And there's a little bit of Google Pay, but we don't spend huge budgets on that.
Joachim Eeckhout (17:36)
Yeah, I think it's always good to at least have a small cushion of pay to push things up. I think it's just a leverage and it makes sense for everyone to do so if we look at the whole experience, what was the most challenging part of this rebranding?
Heikki Lanckriet (17:40)
We need something, right?
think sticking to timelines and budgets, guess, right? mean, you know, that's always the hardest piece, know, like nothing ever goes the way you think it's going to go. And there's always a few bits and pieces that requires some more work, which then pushes the timelines out or requires a little bit more budget. So, yeah, credit to the team. Like, I mean, I've been really impressed with them on how they've managed this. And I think, you
Good management solves a lot of problems. You have a good team that keeps on top of it and has decent plans that they have worked at and milestones on deliverables that need to be achieved by certain times. And then really championing this and owning this, I think that that's the key to success. And yeah, I think that's where we were lucky with our internal leadership, taking control over this and leading this over the line in time and on.
budget.
Joachim Eeckhout (18:44)
how many people are in your marketing team.
Heikki Lanckriet (18:46)
It's four or five people now.
Joachim Eeckhout (18:48)
Okay, so you have a decent amount of marketing people. ⁓
Heikki Lanckriet (18:52)
We have, yeah, it's not a single person needing to do everything. know, with
a lot of small companies, that's the problem, right? So, yeah, we have a few people that we can deploy onto this, that helps.
Joachim Eeckhout (18:59)
It's just...
Is there anything you would have done differently now that you know about it?
Heikki Lanckriet (19:07)
Nothing springs to mind really. I mean, there's always small things that you could say like, maybe we should have, you know, had less iterations around this because we've kind of already settled around it and we probably had a few more iterations around certain design aspects that we probably, you know, shouldn't have had. But hindsight is a great thing with these things, right? So I think on the whole, think, you know, we've executed it pretty much to plan.
you you can't really complain when things happen like that. And then for me, what was the important thing is the feedback from clients as well, right? So, you know, the response has been, you know, naturally very positive. People have really appreciated the change in the website and, you know, they've liked it. So I think that that's the thing that kind of makes it all worthwhile.
Joachim Eeckhout (19:49)
For other life sciences companies who are considering a rebrand, what advice would you give them?
Heikki Lanckriet (19:55)
your plan, pick the right partners and make sure you have the right internal team as well. So you do need the champions, people who've done it before, who are familiar with this and who understand what is required because it isn't an easy thing and it requires a lot of effort. But definitely make sure you plan ahead and that you have a detailed action plan with deliverables along the way. And that's the roadmap for success.
Joachim Eeckhout (20:18)
At least
Heikki Lanckriet (20:19)
I think six months, yeah.
I don't think it, well, I'm sure people have done it quicker, but like we would not have been able to do it any quicker than that for sure.
Joachim Eeckhout (20:26)
Yeah, from what I've seen, six months is necessary. I can attest. Are you planning now any follow-up marketing initiatives to amplify the rebrand in the coming months?
Heikki Lanckriet (20:30)
Exactly.
Yeah, so I think for us, I mean, the website is never a finished story anyway, right? So that will continue to evolve. I think, you know, we want to do some more things around some of the booths and the swag that we bring to events as well. But generally, I think, you know, we have a pretty good package now and it's about rolling that out and making people aware.
We're thinking about some accelerators like doing some advertising, using the new brand to get a wider reach and get bit more imprints into people's minds. So we have a program that we're developing around that to try and accelerate the impact of the branding. So yeah, I mean, it never stops. So the marketing team always is the very creative people. They always have ideas about what to do next.
just go along on the journey with them.
Joachim Eeckhout (21:30)
Yeah, we wish you all the best for the future.
Heikki Lanckriet (21:33)
thanks, it's been great talking to you
Joachim Eeckhout (21:35)
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