Best Of 2025 Vol 02: Our highlights of the last months

Never before has the pressure for change on companies been as great as it is today—and never before have expectations for brands and their contribution to corporate success been so high. This is fundamentally changing the way brands must be developed and managed.

In our online session, we’ll present three exciting brands that have successfully navigated this transformation in different markets under very different circumstances:

• The technology and management consulting firm x1F, which has brought 16 individual brands together under a shared identity
• The technology company MAN Energy Solutions, which reinvented itself as Everllence
• The DFB with the new look of its national teams

90 minutes featuring three inspiring branding projects and seven passionate takeaways! In three 15-minute sessions followed by a Q&A round, we’ll present these three current branding highlights:

Everllence: How a technology company reinvents itself

A young business division. A forward-looking direction. New customers and new talent to attract: Like so many traditional companies, MAN Energy Solutions faced the question of how to credibly communicate its reorientation. The answer: With a new, globally recognizable and scalable brand and the name Everllence, the company reinvented itself and positioned itself in the market for decarbonization solutions. “We stayed true to ourselves by changing,” says Martin Stich-Kluge, Everllence’s Head of Marketing. How this bold move succeeded, what matters most in such a transformation, and how to get 15,000 employees on board—we’ll cover all of that in our online session.

x1F: How to build a strong brand from 16 individual firms

“Nothing can inspire an organization more than a credible identity,” says Thomas Steiner, CEO of X1F. And inspiration was exactly what the consulting firm—specializing in technology and management topics and formed from the merger of 16 boutique consultancies with a total of 1,200 employees—needed. Their problem: The brand, marketing, and corporate culture hadn’t kept pace with the corporate strategy. Through a detailed branding process, we defined the new brand’s identity, translated it into a compelling brand presence, and launched it with great fanfare. We’ll explain exactly how we did this in the online session, together with someone who knows what identity has to do with successful transformation: Thomas Steiner.

DFB: How to Further Develop an Iconic Brand

Brand icons are like world rankings: only those who constantly evolve remain at the top. That is exactly what the DFB has done with its national teams. Because where men used to be in the spotlight, today there are three distinct teams on the field—women, men, and juniors. Each with its own character. Each with its own language and its own fan base. And yet: all representing a country. Our rebranding captures this balancing act: There is room for individuality without losing sight of what unites us. The central question that drove us: How do you give an icon emotional depth—and give its fans the feeling of being right in the thick of it?