T-Global | Uniting Taiwan and Europe Under One Thermal Management Brand

The Challenge: A New Strategy Under an Old Brand

T-Global made its name in thermal interface materials through quality, a full product line, fast delivery, customization and no minimum order quantity. Then low-cost competitors turned the basic end of the market into a price war. T-Global’s answer was to move up, from product maker to thermal engineering solutions provider, serving fast-growing fields such as 5G and electric vehicles.

The brand was not ready for that move, for three reasons:

• No clear positioning or customer profile. T-Global needed a way to explain its new role to existing customers and to win the trust of new ones quickly.
• A product buyers overlook. Thermal materials sit inside almost every electronic product, yet buyers rarely think of them as a key component. T-Global’s marketing, including its long-running comic series, explained the products and technology but said little about the value of its engineering services.
• One company, two brands. In 2019 the Taiwan headquarters took full ownership of the European office. The two still used different logos and marketing materials, and the company had no brand guidelines.

The project was selected and part-funded under Branding Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs program that helps Taiwanese companies build international brands. Geber is one of the program’s partner consultancies.

What We Found

We started inside T-Global, with eight interviews running from senior management to sales and product development. Outside, we talked to ten business contacts in Taiwan and overseas, most of them customers and distributors. We also compared T-Global with six international competitors, including Henkel and Honeywell, and reviewed its website analytics.

Five findings came out of the research:

1. Customers choose T-Global for speed. Distributors and customers said fast response, from samples to shipping, was the main reason they work with T-Global.
2. Expertise builds trust. Customers valued T-Global’s product consultants, who can work side by side with their own engineering teams, backed by detailed specification sheets.
3. Flexibility sets it apart from the multinationals. With no minimum order quantity and flexible production, T-Global is easier to work with than the large groups, especially for small and mid-sized customers.
4. A one-stop shop matters more than “solutions.” Every competitor in the category already talks about solutions and innovation. Customers and distributors were more interested in one supplier for all their thermal products and services.
5. Customers expect a global brand. To compete with the multinationals, T-Global needed to present itself as one company in every market.

What We Did

The work ran over two program years. In 2019 we built the strategy and the new identity, and in 2020 we helped T-Global put them to work through training, brand management, digital marketing and a corporate film.

Brand Strategy: A One-Stop Shop Built on Speed

The research pointed to a clear position. T-Global would compete where the multinationals are slower and less flexible, and offer customers one source for everything thermal.

With T-Global’s management, we rewrote the vision and mission around that position and wrote a brand story in Chinese and English.

Tagline: “More Innovation. Less Heat.”

We created the tagline to link T-Global to the technologies its customers are building. The innovation in the line is the customer’s: T-Global takes care of the heat, so customers can make their products more powerful. It launched with the new identity in May 2020.

Logo and Identity: Blue from Taiwan, Orange from Europe

The new logo merges the Taiwan and European brands into one mark. Its blue comes from T-Global’s original Taiwan logo and its orange from the European office’s, and the pairing of orange and blue also stands for heat moving from hot to cool. The symbol combines the letters t and g, and its italic slant suggests speed.

From the logo we built a full corporate identity system and T-Global’s first brand guidelines. It covers everyday items as well as the sales materials distributors had asked for:

• Product catalog template, organized around six application industries
• Trade show leaflet and presentation template
• Sample box and sample packaging
• Trade show booth guidelines
• Business cards, envelopes, ID badges and lanyards

Brand Training: A 30-Second Pitch for Every Team

In December 2019 we ran an all-staff brand workshop. CEO Kenny Hsiao shared the story behind the new vision and values, and teams practiced a 30-second pitch of what T-Global offers customers. In 2020 we added brand content to new-hire training and ran digital marketing courses on analytics tools and LinkedIn. A second brand workshop followed in January 2021.

Brand Management and Digital Marketing: Keeping the Brand Consistent

• Marketing plan: priorities for internal, online, offline and partner marketing, including a website organized by industry and stronger branding at the 20 to 30 trade shows T-Global attended each year.
• Monthly brand consulting meetings: guidance for the marketing team as it rolled out the new identity.
• Imagery guideline and key visual: rules that keep product photos and campaign graphics consistent.
• Brand management process: we mapped how marketing assets were requested, produced, approved and stored, and recommended a central digital asset management system. T-Global then selected and installed one.
• Social media review: content pillars and sample posts in the new brand style for T-Global’s Facebook and LinkedIn pages.

Corporate Image Film: From Script to Screen in Three Languages

We made T-Global’s corporate image film from start to finish, from the key messages and script to the shoot and edit. It moves from T-Global’s consultants and test lab to its production lines, and ends with T-Global working with customers toward a greener future. It was released in Chinese, English and Japanese, and the Branding Taiwan case page links to the English version.

Results

T-Global still uses the brand we built and remains a Geber client today.

The Brand at Work

• One identity since 2020. T-Global launched the new logo and brand worldwide in May 2020, and its offices in Taiwan and Europe have used them ever since.
• The message is in use too. T-Global’s About page promises “prompt and agile service,” the value proposition we set in 2019, and its European website carries the tagline “More Innovation. Less Heat.”
• A client that stayed. After the first year, T-Global chose to continue with Geber and applied for a second program year, which the program approved.
• Featured by Branding Taiwan. In August 2021 the program published the project as one of its case studies, with a link to T-Global’s corporate image film.

The Business Since the Rebrand

• Early gains after launch. T-Global reported these figures to the program for June to September 2020, the first months after the launch. Compared with the same months of 2019, Facebook inquiries rose 27% and returning website visitors rose 17%. E-commerce order value reached eight times the 2019 level as T-Global added new online sales platforms.
• More customers and new capacity. T-Global’s direct customers have grown from more than 2,500 in 2019 to more than 7,500 today. It now supplies cooling for AI servers and advanced chip packaging, and alongside its four sites in Taoyuan it has built a new plant in northern Vietnam.

That growth is the work of T-Global’s own people, selling under the brand we built together.

“Brand consulting sped up the globalization of our brand and unified our brand image, so that T-Global can face global challenges with courage and keep evolving.”

Kenny Hsiao, CEO, T-Global Technology (as quoted by Branding Taiwan, translated from Chinese)

Is your company better than its brand suggests? Many Taiwanese manufacturers lead their category and still introduce themselves as a supplier. Talk to us about closing that gap.