The Award-Winning Rea Rebrand
Naming - Logo Design - Verbal Guidelines - Visual Guidelines - Website Refresh - Video Production
An accounting firm rebrand to align identity with growth while honoring roots
The Rea Rebrand
Lead with Identity. Fuel with Ambition.
Ambition is great, but you don’t want it to outpace your identity. Put another way: don’t grow so fast it ruins the reason people like you. You want to grow in a way that fulfills your identity, not ruins it.
Rea was growing fast, through acquisitions, geographic expansion, and a shift toward broader advisory services. But their brand was still rooted in the identity of a traditional CPA firm, which no longer reflected who they were or where they were headed.
The problem:
From the outside, they looked like just another accounting firm. Internally, their leadership and team knew they had become much more, but their brand didn’t support that evolution.
People across departments needed a unified story that would resonate both inside and outside the firm.
So we led a brand strategy workshop with leadership, complete with Sharpies, Post-it Notes, and lots of collaboration. This workshop surfaced a surprising insight: despite initial uncertainty, the team was more aligned than expected. That alignment became the foundation for a unified brand story, centered around legacy and future growth.
We gave them:
- A new name structure
- Tagline
- Messaging framework
- A verbal identity that reflected their advisory-first posture
And, with their help, we were able to do all this while staying grounded in their history. The process helped the organization see itself clearly again, with language and identity built to scale.
Rea's Rebrand Won the Best Integrated Branding Program
for firms with revenue above $40M in 2025
Website: From Bottleneck to Growth Engine
But the work was just beginning. With a new brand in hand, the website needed to follow. The old website felt fragmented across service areas and didn’t support the way Rea actually worked. Visitors struggled to find what they needed, and internal teams struggled to make updates efficiently.
The problem:
- The website was outdated and technically difficult to manage.
- Adding even one team member required paying a developer.
- Content updates in one place didn’t sync across the site.
- The site lagged behind the firm’s growth and made small changes feel heavy.
- Fragmented structure created complexity and inefficiency.
The outcome:
The new website gave Rea a modern, scalable platform that put their people and expertise front and center. It’s now easy for anyone with permission to make updates without relying on developers, and changes sync automatically across the site. The structured content system and automation ensure the site can grow with the firm. By eliminating technical bottlenecks, Rea’s online presence now keeps pace with their real-time growth.
The Rea team was thrilled with the transformation, praising the new site’s ease of use, modern design, and ability to keep pace with their growth.
Since launch, the website has become a true growth engine, generating so many qualified inbound leads that Rea’s team had to assign staff specifically to manage them. It is clear that the brand and website are fueling real business results.
Sub-Branding: Creating a Cohesive Architecture for Growth
Imagine not just being an accounting firm, but being able to help clients in many ways. That’s the challenge: how do you organize multiple services around one set of values?
More than that, how do you make that visual, with logos, colors, and photography that reflect the same brand promise over many brands?
As Rea expanded, so did the number of initiatives under their umbrella: Rea Academy, Rea Information Services, Rea Wealth, and the Rea Foundation. Each needed a clear identity, but they also needed to look and feel like part of the same organization.
Without a clear naming and visual system, Rea risked brand fragmentation as they added new services and acquisitions. We created a unified structure that let sub-brands stand on their own while staying tied to the master brand, bringing Rea more directly into the fold.
This scalable, cohesive system gives Rea the flexibility to grow without losing its identity.
Built to Last
Each element of this project was rooted in a clear need and a specific business challenge:
Rebrand
Defined who Rea is today and where they’re going, aligning the internal with the external.
Website
Improved usability, simplified content management, and elevated the firm’s digital presence to match its people.
Video
Gave leadership a credible, human platform to lead the story and instill confidence in the rebrand.
Sub-Branding System
Created a durable, extensible structure to keep the brand connected as it expands.