Ecolab - Rebranding a global B2B organisation to bring cohesion to their entire enterprise
The work
When the pandemic hit, Ecolab was more than prepared to help its customers navigate the new standards of cleanliness. As a global science leader with a century of proven expertise in water, hygiene, and infection prevention, they had the solutions and knowledge the world needed. But the brand was not telling that story clearly to customers, or to the general public. As well-known consumer brands gained a new foothold in the B2B hygiene market, Ecolab partnered with us to strengthen their master brand, differentiate themselves in the marketplace, and reposition as the B2B2C leader they knew they could be.
Our roles
- Brand Identity
- Brand Architecture
- Value Proposition
- Brand Narrative
- Package Design
- Environmental Design
“Zeus Jones expertly navigated our complex global organisation—bringing meaningful strategic guidance and forward-looking creative direction to our successful global brand modernisation,” commented Jen McLean, senior director, global brand at Ecolab.
The Opportunity
Build a brand that resonates broadly—while flexing to meet the complex needs of each business unit.
Ecolab is a massive and complex organisation with multiple business units, hundreds of products, and tens of thousands of employees spread across six continents. Their services and solutions garner billions of impressions every day in almost every sector of society, from hand sanitizer dispensers to hospital operating rooms. Despite this ubiquity, though, Ecolab still considered themselves a behind-the-scenes partner—a humble B2B brand structured around individual products and programs rather than a recognisable master brand. This fragmented approach held them back from telling a cohesive brand story, limited their potential for cross-brand sales, and was not allowing them to tell their impact story in culturally relevant ways.
Our Approach
Making complex science understandable and relevant in everything Ecolab touches.
In the world of B2B, Ecolab’s brand already had multiple strengths, including equity built on 100 years of proven expertise, solutions, and service. But the brand wasn't talking about its superior science in ways that resonated with the general public or that differentiated them from B2B and B2C competitors.
We analysed the business units and product branding and conducted 99 stakeholder interviews, discovering new opportunities for Ecolab’s core brand to differentiate itself in the process. Chief among these was their proven commitment to sustainability and protecting environmental resources.
Our insights became the foundation for a new value proposition, a new brand narrative that elevated Ecolab’s commitment to sustainable futures through science, a revamped logo, and a new tagline that underscored the organisation’s pledge to proactively safeguard people, planet and business health. Building on their previous logo, we modernised the spark shape within the “O,” and incorporated that spark—representing Ecolab’s innovation and commitment to a brighter future—into a design system that builds equity for the master brand.
Our research also made it apparent that the task was bigger than designing an identity and applying it through a set of brand guidelines. It was about crafting a core identity and then consistently applying it across key touchpoints to ensure that anyone who encounters any part of Ecolab would intuitively understand the connection to the overarching master brand. We saw an opportunity to set Ecolab up for success with a restructured brand architecture that allowed core brand elements to come to life in each business while simultaneously strengthening individual programs, products, and the master brand.
This work culminated in a new brand toolkit that conveys the core Ecolab brand across touchpoints, business units, sub-brands and products.
Evolving every touchpoint to cement the brand’s category leadership.
Key touchpoints would need to go beyond consistency and unify the brand to give Ecolab credit for their superior science and effectiveness. This meant redesigning four key areas: uniforms, sales and service vehicles, packaging, and facilities.
Making each of these work together as well as stand on their own required a system that balanced consistency with flexibility. One of Ecolab’s greatest strengths is the human, one-on-one interactions people have with employees. To make sure those experiences connected back to Ecolab itself, we narrowed the colour palette for uniforms across business units, refined their iconic lab coat with a new badging system, and ensured gender-inclusive fits across the organisation of 40,000 employees. By elevating the uniforms in a cohesive way, we could ensure that the engaging experiences customers had with individuals would drive stronger brand recognition for Ecolab globally and build a sense of pride in Ecolab’s greatest touchpoint: its people.
In preparation for Ecolab’s partnership with Ford to convert their fleet of service vehicles to EVs, we created vehicle wraps for electric Ford F-150 Lightning Pro trucks and Mustang Mach-E SUVs. Bearing the design system’s dynamic chevron, sparks, and refreshed logo, these vehicles both embody functionality and serve as rolling billboards for the master brand.
As a staple of many organisations’ solutions for cleaning and disinfecting, Ecolab needed a label system that stood out on every supply shelf where it could be found. We simplified and systematised colour coding and created a vertical treatment of the logo that allowed it to carry more impact. We also created a label guide for updating labels globally, leading to a stronger, more elevated brand presence on their largest touchpoint—the products themselves.
Bringing the brand to life in Ecolab’s facilities went beyond applying brand guidelines to spaces—we worked to translate brand principles into modern, comfortable, inspiring, and thoughtful environments. We built guidelines around a materials palette that included woods, tiles, carpets, and paint colours, plus opportunities for bold brand expressions through water features, living walls, and artwork. The result is a modular playbook that helps Ecolab create an environment true to their values, and one that promotes dynamic, flexible ways of working to meet the needs of a post-Covid workplace.
“We helped build a stronger culture internally at Ecolab because we did the work of truly including so many stakeholders. They felt a sense of kinship to our work. It feels like we gave everyone a way to come together as one Ecolab,” said Brad Surcey, designer and partner at Zeus Jones.
The Outcome
A future-focused brand that’s built to last.
Through a strong partnership with the company’s most senior leaders, including their CMO and CEO, our partnership with Ecolab evolved into much more than brand identity. Their willingness to be bold and ambitious along with us helped unify the brand and align the entire organisation to its goals. The work we’ve done with Ecolab affects every significant brand touchpoint, and has helped this global, matrixed organisation build a strong, cohesive culture that transcends market and geography.
We helped Ecolab launch the new brand internally in 2022, supporting our clients as they onboarded teams, integrated new designs, and explored how it all showed up when put into practice. The reception to the rebrand and repositioning has been so positive that Ecolab continues to engage with us today to carry it through in other initiatives. We’ve worked together on trade show booths, naming and identity for specific products—including Virocid—and a collaboration with Major League Soccer’s Minnesota United for Ecolab-branded water refill stations at the team’s stadium, Allianz Field.
