Listen to Leanne Franco on Brand Intelligence
What does it take to successfully rebrand a company after strategic acquisitions? In this episode of the Brand Intelligence Podcast, host William Tyree sits down with Leanne Franco, VP of Communications at Wyloo, to explore the company’s award-winning rebranding journey. Wyloo, a leader in critical minerals for the clean energy transition, successfully unified several acquisitions under one global brand, earning recognition with a Brandie Award in the minerals and natural resources sector.
Leanne shares insights into the creative process behind the rebrand, including the choice of a bold orange color palette and mining-related motifs that reflect Wyloo’s commitment to exploration and sustainability. She highlights how employee engagement was crucial in bringing the brand to life, making them true ambassadors through initiatives like branded swag and social media activations.
Listen as William and Leanne discuss the balance between brand governance and creativity, the challenge of rebranding on a tight timeline, and how Wyloo’s brand stands out in a competitive industry with its focus on innovation and decarbonization. This episode is packed with valuable takeaways for anyone interested in brand strategy and employee-driven brand success.
If you’re a marketing or brand leader looking to improve campaign production, approvals, digital assets and brand governance, visit us at http://www.IntelligenceBank.com
Learn more about Wyloo at https://wyloo.com/
Subscribe to the Brand Intelligence podcast on your favorite platforms:
Episode Transcript
William Tyree: Welcome to the Brand Intelligence Podcast, the show where we pull back the curtain on some of the world’s smartest brands. I’m your host, William Tyree, and today we’ll speak with Leanne Franco about Wyloo’s rebrand campaign. Wyloo Metals has experienced a number of acquisitions, necessitating the need to consolidate their standalone brands into one global brand.
Wyloo. Wyloo recently won a Brandy Award for best rebrand or brand update in the mineral and natural resources sector. Leanne is the VP of communications at Wyloo.
Leanne, welcome to brand intelligence.
Leanne Franco: Hi, William. It’s lovely to meet you. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast
William Tyree: Before we dive into your amazing story, we like to ask guests to give us a theme song. So if you were walking out on stage today to give a keynote address, what would your song be and why?
Leanne Franco: This is such a fun question. And I think if I was about to walk out on stage, I’d probably be really nervous to be honest. So I’d want a song that pumps me up and gives me a confidence boost. So I would go with girl on fire by Alicia Keys.
Cause you, you can’t help, but feel good when you listen to that song.
William Tyree: I will second that. That is a great pick. I love that. And not only is it a great song, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone actually walkout music. So you would be a complete original.
Leanne Franco: There we go. Yeah. I was like, is it a little Is it a little boastful to call yourself a girl on fire? But I was like, Hey, if I’m about to walk out, you need that pump up. Don’t you? And she’s such an amazing artist. Great voice. So yeah, we’ll go with that one.
William Tyree: I’d love to start if we could with learning a little bit about Wyloo, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you do, who you do it for and where you are.
Leanne Franco: Yeah. So Wyloo is a critical minerals company. That’s really passionate about the clean energy transition. So we’re headquartered here in Perth in Western Australia, but we’re a, global business. We’ve got some nickel mines here in a region called Kambowda in Western Australia, and we have probably one of the world’s most exciting nickel projects called Eagle’s Nest, which is in a region called the Ring of Fire in Northern Ontario in Canada.
So our main commodity is nickel, and nickel is important to the energy transition because it’s a key ingredient in electric vehicle batteries. But we’ve got a few other investments in other commodities as well, like rare earths, which are important for technologies that improve efficiency and reduce energy use in lots of different technologies.
So we’re really passionate about the clean energy transition. We want to help the world decarbonize. And who do we help? From a local perspective, we help the communities and First Nation communities where we operate with. The basics like jobs and local business opportunities, but on a broader scale, we’re really excited to help move the world into those technologies, which will help the planet to decarbonize.
William Tyree: That’s great. I love the positioning. I was actually just up in Ontario a couple of weeks ago. Have you had a chance to visit your location up there?
Leanne Franco: I have, we have an office in Toronto and also Thunder Bay, but our site, it’s called Eska site is. right up in the ring of fire in northern Ontario, and it is stunning landscape. Like you don’t see that kind of first of all, you don’t see that level of snow anywhere here in Australia. I was up there when I was knee deep in snow and minus 20 degrees, which was Way too cold for my Australian body, but it’s beautiful.
It’s a great landscape and the people up there are just fantastic. So I was really lucky to get up there.
William Tyree: That sounds like an amazing trip. Listen, I love stories like Wyloo, because these are the companies that literally make the world go around. There are so many things that just wouldn’t be possible without what you do. So I’m really excited about it. And I’m also just really excited about your brand.
And that’s what we’re here to talk about today. You won a brandy award for best rebrand or brand update. And I’d love to know how you actually got it done. And just to set the context, I’ve been a CMO for almost 20 years now. I’ve known hundreds of people like me out in the world and brand leaders out in the world, and I know that.
That’s it’s not always easy to convince somebody to buy into your vision for something like this. So what were the drivers and, how did you get it off the ground, so to speak?
Leanne Franco: First of all, I love that you were so passionate about the brand, William, because I know that mining, mining here in Western Australia is a massive deal. We are a big mining community. But I know that not everyone around the world feels that way about mining. So it’s really exciting for me to hear that you love the brand so much.
So thank you.
Listen to the full episode to see even more great conversation between William Tyree and Leanne Franco…
