Brunswick has recently repositioned its Brunswick Creative arm as Investor Brand, focusing on investor audiences. Firm partner Sonal Patel is leading the practice, and explains the strategy behind the decision and what it says about how companies earn trust today.

Why lead with the name Investor Brand, rather than positioning it more explicitly as part of Brunswick? 

The name reflects a shift in how companies earn belief and confidence in capital markets today. We are leading that conversation because this is where our experience runs deepest. We are very deliberately Brunswick's Investor Brand practice. What sits behind it is the full breadth of Brunswick: colleagues across the world with decades of experience advising at the sharpest moments of investor scrutiny, and a deep bench of creative and strategic talent. That combination is what makes the practice both credible and distinctive.

Leading with Investor Brand allows us to put the idea first. Clients are increasingly asking us to help them navigate how credibility is formed, tested and sustained in capital markets today - not just through individual moments, but over time. Investor Brand is our response to that challenge and a framework for addressing it, with the Brunswick name standing firmly behind it as a source of judgement, experience and trust.

Some might read Investor Brand as a specific service offering. How should clients understand its role within the firm? 

It's is neither a standalone operation nor a discrete service. It is a practice - a strategic discipline we have developed that brings creative intelligence and advisory judgement together in a more deliberate way. Clients are not coming to us asking for "an Investor Brand product". They are coming to us for help navigating increasingly complex, high-stakes moments with investors, and for confidence that their story will be told consistently over time.

Investor Brand is our answer to that challenge. It is the firm working more closely across reporting, results, strategy moments, leadership communications and events - understanding clients deeply, and supporting them at every point where investor scrutiny is highest. We named it because it matters, and because clients were asking us to make this thinking more explicit.

How does this sit alongside your work in wider stakeholder communications, such as employer or internal branding? 

Investor Brand builds on the same foundation that underpins all of our creative work. We are still thinkers, makers and creatives. Creativity remains at the heart of what we do. What Investor Brand reflects is how deliberately we now apply creative intelligence in capital markets contexts where audiences are highly sophisticated, comparison is constant, and credibility is tested relentlessly.

We bring the same ability to shape corporate brand, narrative and leadership presence across the wider stakeholder ecosystem. What differentiates Investor Brand is that it recognises investors and analysts as a distinct audience and applies the full force of our creative and advisory capability to meet them on their terms.

Creative and digital capability sit at the core of our work across Brunswick and Investor Brand is one of the spaces where that creative intelligence is now being applied most deliberately, under the highest levels of scrutiny.

It's important to note that this doesn’t mean we’re stepping away from wider stakeholder communications. Employee engagement projects and corporate branding remain core competencies, and we'll continue to deliver work in these areas.

How much of this evolution reflects how Brunswick Creative was previously understood, particularly after the transition from MerchantCantos?

This exciting evolution reflects how we have always worked: moving with the market, anticipating what clients need next, and leading where the stakes are highest. The transition from MerchantCantos to Brunswick Creative was about integration - bringing creative capability closer to Brunswick’s advisory core. Investor Brand is the next step in that journey, shaped by what clients are asking for now.

Increasingly, clients are looking for judgement: how to decide what matters, how to sustain belief across moments, and how to show up with conviction when scrutiny intensifies. Investor Brand gives shape to expertise we have been building for years and allows us to lead more explicitly in a space where we have always played the most defining role.

Is Investor Brand a global proposition?

Yes, it’s a global practice. The pressures companies face in capital markets are widely shared, even if regulatory contexts differ. Investor Brand sits within Brunswick’s global capability and works hand-in-hand with advisory teams around the world.

What makes this moment meaningful is that combination of global reach, local judgement, creative intelligence and advisory depth. Investor Brand is about recognising — and naming — something the market has been moving towards for some time: the need to build belief deliberately under investor scrutiny. What’s new is how clearly we are choosing to lead in that space.

Does the rebrand suggest a narrowing of scope? 

This is not about narrowing focus, but about sharpening it. Investor Brand is a lens focused on the areas where scrutiny is most intense and investor confidence is shaped early. By leaning into that reality, we are reinforcing something that strengthens the entire system of communications around a business.

The thinking behind Investor Brand - clarity, coherence, conviction - applies across stakeholders. Capital markets simply expose whether those qualities genuinely hold. Far from limiting our work, this sharpens how we bring creative intelligence to everything we do.