Case Study Overview
CBTS, a leading North American IT services company, came to Ladyship with a common challenge: how to turn their ambitious new vision into a brand they could confidently take to market.
The business had defined a fresh strategic and visual direction to stand out in enterprise technology, but it needed streamlining, sharpening, and strengthening into a real-world-ready brand. Partnering closely with new CMO Caroline Burger in her first 90 days, Ladyship landed a brand platform that distilled CBTS's unique strengths: Building Stronger Foundations. Around this idea, we designed a distinctive and fully operational system — codified in comprehensive guidelines, 110+ assets, a new website, and practical training that the in-house team could run with. The result was a brand defined by both its robustness and its flexibility, designed to deepen the business’ strong existing relationships and accelerate new growth in AI, security, and infrastructure.
Building Stronger Foundations
We developed the platform, identity system, and launch campaign that took CBTS’s new direction from theory to operational reality.
At the heart of CBTS sat a clear truth — with deep roots in hardware and decades of long-term client partnerships, its unique value lay in strengthening the technological foundations that businesses are built on. With AI hype on the rise and many organizations still playing catch-up, this remained a strong differentiator. Working closely with leadership, we crystallized a complex existing story into a sharp idea — Building Stronger Foundations — that made this truth actionable. From here, we refined the organization’s proposition, wrote a rallying manifesto, and shaped the tone of voice and messaging for business-wide adoption. We then developed a measurement framework to track the contribution of brand and marketing to commercial success.
With Building Stronger Foundations as our anchor, we evolved the new visual direction into a scalable identity system.
We refined the CBTS wordmark, and that of OnX, its Canadian subsidiary, for visual balance and coherence, allowing them to stand distinct or operate as one. Around this, we built a robust system: a flexible layout logic with clear typographic hierarchy, distinctive color palette and plug-and-play iconography style, both rooted in CBTS's iconic teal, and a candid photographic approach built around the business’ unique strengths. Fresh enough to set CBTS apart, familiar enough to honor its roots, the system was brought to life with clear guidelines for how to flex across a complex dual-brand business. We rolled out the identity across HubSpot with full navigation and conversion-oriented page layouts, and built extensive templates for sales, marketing, and leadership to embed the brand day-to-day. We then trained the newly-formed in-house design team to use the system at pace.
Forge AI — CBTS's newest offering — was the first external launch under the new brand.
Together with the in-house team, we developed a strategic hook, manifesto, and headline messaging that gave the campaign a clear point of view on what real AI value looks like for the first campaign under the new brand. From there, we brought it to life through the creative — look and feel, hero imagery, and activation across social, email, and a flagship Executive Guide, along with dedicated website pages. Forge AI gave the business its first working example of the new system in the market, launched initially under the old logo to build anticipation and navigate a transition point, while the business prepared for full rollout.
With a brand as strong as its own foundations, CBTS now has the momentum to create new client conversations, deepen existing partnerships, and continue to grow across North America.
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