"Thank you for being the rockstar you are!"
Ellie Rohrbacher, OWL Oncology Research
About the Client
OWL Oncology Research builds flexible clinical operations teams that function as an extension of their clients’ internal teams. With roots in oncology and rare diseases, their global network of seasoned professionals delivers scalable, cost-effective support across therapeutic areas without the excess overhead of traditional CRO models.
Project Goals
Elevate the brand’s professional presentation without sacrificing the quirky owl-themed personality, humor, and existing brand equity loved by staff and clients.
Refresh the logo and redesign the website to reflect the firm’s growth, expanded capabilities, and readiness to serve larger, more sophisticated clients.
Develop a clearer website content strategy and expanded site architecture that fully communicated the firm’s capabilities instead of underselling them.
Transition the design and production of marketing materials from internal staff to an experienced creative partner who could provide strategic and visual consistency as the company grew.
Challenges
OWL’s playful personality and love of owl puns differentiated the firm within an industry known for restrained, highly conventional communication. The refreshed brand needed to preserve that unconventional spirit while conveying the rigor, credibility, and sophistication expected by larger clients.
As a growing industry disruptor competing for substantial accounts, OWL needed to look every bit as capable as much larger, traditional CROs without imitating them or erasing what made the firm distinctive.
Oncology and clinical research are both technically complex and emotionally sensitive subjects. The website and ongoing marketing content need to balance sophisticated scientific and operational capabilities with accuracy, clarity, and an appropriate level of humanity.
Solutions
I conducted brand discovery and competitive research to understand OWL’s audiences, goals, existing brand equity, growth trajectory, and position within the CRO marketplace. These insights informed the logo refresh, website, and marketing materials.
Rather than replacing the personality-rich owl icon which staff and clients already loved, I refreshed the logo to preserve its recognizable owl character while giving the brand a more polished and professional presentation.
I expanded and reorganized the website architecture to more fully communicate OWL’s services, capabilities, and differentiators. New and revised content positioned the firm to pursue larger, more sophisticated accounts without sounding like their stuffy competitors.
I designed the website to feel professionally playful, incorporating owl-themed imagery, puns, interactive details, hidden animations, and unexpected moments of delight. A quivering owl egg, animated superhero owl, dynamic scroll effects, and other “OWLster eggs” allow the company’s personality to emerge without compromising credibility.
To build excitement around the launch, I concepted and art directed two custom logo animations. One brings the owl in the website’s logo to life as he periodically flies away, returns, rearranges his feathers, and settles back into the logo (watch here on the website). The second tells the story of his transformation from the original logo into the refreshed identity through a cinematic flight over the forest and into the magical moonlight (watch here on YouTube).
The successful launch grew into an ongoing Fractional CMO engagement. I have since designed pitch decks, sales tools, email campaigns, trade-show booth materials, brochures, branded notebooks, promotional items, and an animated presentation that plays continuously at industry events.
I developed cohesive concepts for OWL’s generous annual client-gifting campaigns and managed the many production details needed to bring them to life on time and on budget.
On an ongoing basis, I provide brand strategy and creative direction to junior staff responsible for OWL’s blog and LinkedIn presence, helping the growing company maintain a consistent flow of polished, personality-rich content.