From health care to banking, companies find rebranding worth time, investment
When you grab that cup of joe in the morning, you probably head to Dunkin’.
That’s right, Dunkin’.
Not Dunkin’ Donuts.
Dunkin’ dropped “Donuts” from its name in 2018 to focus more on its beverage offerings. Ironically, one of Dunkin’s biggest competitors, Starbucks, dropped “Starbucks” and “Coffee” from its logo in 2011 to “move beyond its core product,” which is coffee.
Most of your favorite brands have rebranded at some point: McDonald’s, Burger King, Coca-Cola, Twitter (now X), Datsun (now Nissan). Companies rebrand for a variety of reasons: clarity, change in focus or to improve awareness.
But it’s not just national companies that rebrand. So do local businesses.
“It’s really to better position us in our messaging and our look and feel,” said Allyson Straka, founder and CEO of Frozen Garden, a Valparaiso-based company that delivers smoothies, overnight oats, grain bowls and more to your door.
According to a 2023 Bynder study, 82% of 1,002 marketers have worked on a rebrand. It also said an average rebrand includes updating about 215 assets and takes about seven months to complete.
For Teachers Credit Union, that process took a little longer, said Angie Dvorak, chief marketing and growth officer for now Everwise Credit Union.
“This was not something that we just made a decision and moved on,” Dvorak said. “It took us about five years from the initial point of research to implementation.”
Frozen Garden
For Straka, rebranding came as her company grew. She started Frozen Garden 10 years ago, operating as a small, frozen-food manufacturer.
Even though her background is in computer software, Straka started the company when she began having children.
“I started getting really into health and what we’re putting into our bodies. I like to call myself a real foodist, which is just about getting back to the basics of eating real whole foods,” Straka said.
Soon after, she started a nutrition education company called Mindful Nourishment, based in Chesterton.
“It was all about teaching people how to get back into their kitchens and make real food from scratch,” she said.
She has been drinking a smoothie a day for more than 20 years.
“It’s just a super easy way to get fruits and vegetables into your everyday diet with very limited work,” Straka said.
All her friends wanted to make smoothies, she said. They would buy fresh produce, but oftentimes, it turned rotten in their refrigerators.
But Straka rejected the idea of opening a smoothie bar. A conversation with her dad led her to Frozen Garden.
“My dad, who owns several manufacturing companies in Canada. He said, ‘If you could get your clients to do just one thing for their health, what would it be?’ I said, ‘drink a green smoothie every day,’” Straka recounted. “He said, ‘Well, how do you make that easier for them?’ So literally that night, the idea of Frozen Garden, the name and everything, the idea of like a frozen ready-to-blend smoothie, came to mind.”
Straka’s products were in 400 grocery stores at one time. But the pandemic put a damper on that revenue stream, so she switched to direct-to-consumer. Taking her company to the next level has been the real challenge.
“At the end of 2023, I kind of came to the realization that I couldn’t do it on my own,” Straka said. “I had strengths in operations and finance but not marketing and strategy from a sales perspective. I basically determined that I needed help.”
She spent the next year exploring options. She partnered with Valparaiso-based WeCreate Media to develop a marketing strategy, which led to the rebrand of the company.
Straka wasn’t entirely sold on the idea.
“I’m not gonna lie. I had to be convinced. I’m a nuts and bolts, a numbers kind of a person,” Straka said.
The 10-month process to revamp Frozen Garden’s look, its packaging and website seems to have been worth the investment. Frozen Garden debuted its rebrand in October.
“Just getting feedback from our existing customers about not only the look and feel and the branding, but completely redesigning the end-to-end customer experience of how they interact with Frozen Garden,” Straka said. “We’ve just gotten such great positive feedback from our longtime customers with the rebrand. We’re pretty confident to know that we were on the right path.”
You can also find Frozen Garden products in high-end hotels like JW Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton, primarily on the West Coast and Texas.
Legacy Medical Academy
For Matthew Presley, rebranding the company he works for made sense. Legacy CNA was once known as Michiana Healthcare Training. Now it is the Legacy Medical Academy to better reflect the training it offers.
“This rebranding represents not just a new name but a renewed vision to provide accessible, workforce-aligned health care training to communities across Indiana,” said Presley, president and chief education officer of the Mishawaka-based academy. “We’re no longer just training CNAs. We’re creating flexible, accessible pathways for students and career changers to step into meaningful health care roles.”
About 10 years ago, Michiana Healthcare Training’s original owner was about to shut it down after the State of Indiana changed the regulations for CNAs.
To keep the school going, Angola-based Senior1Care acquired Legacy CNA Training 10 years ago to build a talent pipeline.
With training sites in Mishawaka, Carmel and Fort Wayne, Legacy’s programs now extend beyond Certified Nursing Assistant training to include Qualified Medication Aide, insulin administration and CPR certifications.
The expanded scope of offerings was a driving factor in the name change, reflecting the academy’s role in preparing students for multiple entry points into health care careers.
“We’ve continued and we’ll continue to add more training to what we offer, but our mission is to really train folks into entry-level health care certifications and prepare the next generation of health care workers,” Presley said. “The name reflects a broader appeal to training health care occupations and certifications.”
Presley said the demand is there for high school students wanting to get into the health care field.
“We’re not getting any younger. We’re getting older, and the demand for our CNAs is incredibly high,” Presley said. “We see 100% of our CNAs leave with jobs. We’re partnering with facilities, and we’re training their staff for them. We’re talking about nursing facilities or long-term care facilities, and we’re training their staff, or we’re training as an independent training organization.”
The company’s new website, legacymedicalacademy.com, provides program details, class schedules, enrollment guidance and stories from students.
Everwise Credit Union
Changing the name of a business with more than 90 years of history is daunting. But Everwise Credit Union wasn’t scared off by that.
“We knew we were doing the right thing. But there’s always a little bit of a nervousness when you go change something that’s been around since 1931,” Dvorak said.
Teachers Credit Union officially became known as Everwise Credit Union in June 2023. It took a five-year effort to get to that point, Dvorak said.
“When we felt comfortable, we began moving forward,” she said. “It was not a quick decision. We knew we needed to do it based on the research, but we were very, you know, deliberate in our actions and getting to the rebrand.”
Dvorak said one of the reasons for the change is that two-thirds of the market thought that you had to be a teacher to join the credit union.
“We wanted to make it easier for people to be able to come in and become a member and take advantage of banking and not just questioning whether or not they could actually join,” Dvorak said.
Finding a suitable name was challenging, Dvorak said. Many names are trademarked, so creativity was necessary, she said.
“But for us, we had such a long history of supporting teachers and with the wisdom that teachers offer. That’s kind of how we came up with the ‘wise’ aspect of our name,” Dvorak said. “Then ‘ever,’ it’s just kind of about that longevity. Being focused here within our market for so long and ‘ever’ kind of just fitting well with Everwise.”
Following the name change, Dvorak said the credit union made sure its members knew about the rebrand by reaching out through emails, letters, press and advertising.
Powers Health
Perhaps no name change impacted more residents in Northwest Indiana than Powers Health did in the summer of 2024.
Its former name, Community Healthcare System, became synonymous with providing outstanding health care in the Region. But Marie Forszt, vice president of marketing and corporate communications for Powers Health, said there was plenty of confusion within the system.
Prior to the rebranding, Community Healthcare System comprised four hospitals, three acute care hospitals and one specialty center, which is in Crown Point.
“We have five immediate care centers, a lot of outpatient centers, surgery center, specialty centers, a medically based fitness center and a retirement community in Lake and Porter counties,” Forszt said.
More than 50 logos were used to represent those locations and services.
“You can imagine the brand confusion that could be perceived in the community,” Forszt said.
Through 18 months of research and planning, Forszt said the hospital system decided the timing was right for a rebrand — and the market was ready for it. She said they researched several names before the final rebranding.
“None of those names that we were coming up with really reflected our vision, our identity, what we meant to the community, what we meant to the physicians, our patients,” Forszt said.
Then they went back to the beginning.
“We really wanted to have our name honor our roots and the vision that we live, while launching an enhanced vision for the future to really show that the services and the care and the expertise that we provide on a daily basis to our patients in our community were reflected in the name and how we’re going to grow into the future,” she said.
The name they decided on, in part, was in honor of its founder, Donald S. Powers.
“We are honoring the roots of him because he was the visionary that led the existence of Community Hospital and Community Healthcare System. That was part of it,” Forszt said.
But the other reason for rebranding was the confusion with other health systems, Forszt said.
The rebranding came with some apprehension.
“One of our worries was will people recognize that Powers Health is the same care and service and people that you’re accustomed to receiving care from moving forward?” Forszt said. “We were worried that people might think it’s a merger, an acquisition, a buyout.”
One of the ways to get the new brand out there was the use of “brand ambassadors.”
“We brought about 200 people together that were really those brand champions and educated them, made them feel comfortable, got that excitement going, because that was going to be crucial to those fears that we had,” Forszt said.
“I think the end result has been very positive. We have found that our employees have embraced the Powers Health brand and the patients.” •
Send us news about your journey to a new name or logo and other marketing changes to news@nwindianabusiness.com.
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