Case Study Archives: American Home Products becomes Wyeth

Wyeth, one of the world’s largest research-driven pharmaceutical and health care products companies, is the maker of many well-known prescription drugs as well as consumer brands such as Advil,® Centrum® and Chap Stick.® Formerly known as American Home Products, the company chose BrandLogic to implement a new identity worldwide when it changed its name to Wyeth. The company’s goal was to have the new company’s brand in use on “day one” when the name officially changed.

Having only a wordmark developed by another firm, BrandLogic worked with Wyeth and the company’s public relations and advertising agencies to create a refreshed brand platform.
   Then, within a four-month period, BrandLogic created full identity guidelines and an employee brand Web site that kept 52,000 employees informed about upcoming events and helped build excitement about and anticipation of the new brand.

Successfully evolving a holding company with diversified businesses into a world leader in research-based pharmaceutical products requires much more than simply issuing new identity guidelines. Over the years, many employees had developed an affinity for the names of various businesses within the company and saw no reason for the change.

The American Home Products employee brand site built excitement as a “Countdown to Wyeth,” with daily updates on events concerning the name change. Most of the 52,000 worldwide employees visited the site to order their new business cards, as well as to learn about HR/benefits issues, play a brand trivia contest, and learn about the business reasons for the change.

During this time, BrandLogic also created, designed and installed a worldwide signage system, and numerous other applications ranging from flags and menus to systems for business forms and brochures.

The “Wyeth Brand Show,” an exciting Flash presentation of the company’s rich, proud history, clearly demonstrated the necessity of change with examples of how fragmented the brand, with many disparate names and logos, had become. Viewers were then given an advance look at the new, unified, simple and strong Wyeth program.

The intranet site also replaced thousands of previously warehoused letterheads, memos and fax cover sheets with a downloaded stationery system, which equipped every employee with personalized stationary that was elegant, economical and “on brand.” (See case study on automated stationery systems)

On “day one,” the site announced, "We are Wyeth." Wyeth executives rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, signaling the formal launch of the global pharmaceutical company's new name, logo and trading symbol (NYSE:WYE). Remarked the President and Chief Executive Officer, "We are changing our name to reflect an important transition in the Company's history. Over the years, we have strategically evolved from a holding company with diversified businesses to a world leader in research-based pharmaceutical products.”

After the name change and identity launch, the site transitioned into a specialized resource offering full brand and identity guidelines and information to Wyeth communications professionals and vendors.