A rebrand for the chamber made to be ‘greater for you’

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

July 28, 2025

GREATER GREEN BAY – A local organization’s recent rebranding aims to, literally, put the “greater” in Greater Green Bay.

Laurie Radke – president and CEO of the organization – said the Greater Green Bay Chamber of Commerce decided it was time to tell a new story: one rooted in how the community interacts with the chamber today.

“The way chamber members – our stakeholders and our investors – engage with us has changed,” she said. “We recognize this.”

Two years ago, Radke said the chamber enlisted the help of a local marketing agency, O’Connor Connective, and its owner, Bridget O’Connor, to determine how to best tell the story of the chamber as it currently stands.

“We partnered with O’Connor Connective and [Bridget’s] amazing team on a project to more deeply understand and analyze our chamber brand, our messaging and our engagement,” Radke said. “We did that by listening. We listened, we learned, we did a lot of reflection and reimagined that creativity, thinking about what we could be and what that would mean for our community.”

Radke – who started with the chamber roughly 14 years ago and will be retiring in August – said when she first joined the organization, the word “greater” wasn’t included in its name.

“We transformed into the Greater Green Bay Chamber [to make] sure we were communicating our footprint, and that we were all inclusive of the surrounding area – [not] just the City of Green Bay,” she said.

Now, following a press conference earlier this month where the chamber leadership officially revealed its rebrand, Radke said that word is even more significant to the organization’s work – as its new logo is the mathematical greater-than sign to visually exemplify what O’Connor said is the organization’s new central message.

“You’ll start to see a new tagline come to the surface – ‘greater for you,’” she said.

‘Not just a brand refresh’

The Greater Green Bay Chamber’s commitment to its community, Radke said, is evident in its deliverables – whether that be its “deep dive into economic development…; K-12, post-secondary [education] and workforce development; [or] just making sure [the chamber’s work goes] beyond [only hosting] events.”

“Events serve a major purpose – whether it’s recognizing, through awards, the great work that our companies are doing [or] bringing people together to gather, connect and network,” she said. “But we also want to make sure we’re serving our young professionals… and really supporting small, medium and large companies, our nonprofits [and] our education partners.”

That’s why Vice President of Marketing and Member Engagement Beth Jones Schnese said the new logo and messaging are “not just a brand refresh.”

“This is a strategic shift in how we will communicate, connect and create value for our members, their organizations and the Greater Green Bay community,” she said. “This brand gives us a new platform to tell a bigger, clearer story about the chamber and our members.”

Beyond the organization’s members, Schnese said the rebrand will also help bring more awareness to the Greater Green Bay Chamber Foundation – “an engine of our work.”

Mackenzie Shagosh – communications and media relations manager for the Greater Green Bay Chamber – said the foundation “is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization” created in 1982 to bring “philanthropic community resources together to enhance economic, workforce and community development.”

“The Foundation fuels the Economic Development and Talent and Education initiatives laid out in our strategic plan, and complements our existing membership model to provide programs and resources for Greater Green Bay,” she said.

The chamber’s foundation, Radke said, is one of the lesser-known arms of the organization.

“Yes, we are a membership organization, but we have a thriving foundation,” Radke said. “A lot of people don’t even know that.”

Additionally, Radke said she thinks some people are still not aware the Greater Green Bay Chamber even exists – which she cited as another reason for the rebranding and new messaging.

“It’s really to help people see us inside and out,” she said. “The stories we’re forming have come together through a lengthy survey process… [intended to] make sure we were understanding what people were thinking, what they knew [and] what they didn’t know.”

The data collected from that survey process, Radke said, resulted in an end product she and her team are “really excited about.”

Research-driven rebrand

Distinguishing what the Greater Green Bay Chamber does to serve and impact its community, Radke said, was a primary goal of its rebrand.

“No two chambers are alike as far as what their deliverables are,” she said, “and I think there are a lot of misconceptions [around] understanding what [a] chamber does.”

To uncover where both the community, as well as its own leadership, stood on their perception of the chamber, O’Connor said they conducted internal and external research.

“We first spent time with chamber leadership to understand the current and desired state of the Greater Green Bay Chamber, and then we conducted research – including on national best practices for chambers, and then with various stakeholder groups ranging from current board members to past chamber members – in the form of focus groups and surveys,” she said.

What the research revealed, O’Connor said, was that even though the “chamber is [seen as] a committed and valued partner,” people felt its brand/engagement “was no longer reflecting [its] modern and innovative work.”

Radke said the chamber is involved in many different areas of Greater Green Bay, which is why Ryan Krumrie – a partner at Hager, Dewick & Zuengler, as well as chairman of the chamber’s board of directors – said the organization needed a unified, all-encompassing brand.

“We heard from the members who wanted to see a chamber that better reflects today’s Greater Green Bay – a region that is growing, innovating and attracting new talent and opportunity,” he said. “We also recognized the need for a brand that unites all aspects of our work… under one strong, cohesive identity.”

So, in order to prevent people from “filling in the blanks,” Radke said the chamber’s rebrand aimed to refocus its messaging on three key areas where she and O’Connor said people identified the effects of its work – growth, talent and impact.

“Growth [means] providing resources for your organization’s growth, or your, as a member, individual growth,” O’Connor said. 

Talent, she said, means actively attracting, retaining and developing talent for success, “or helping you develop your own personal talent.”

“And impact [means] convening businesses, nonprofits, educational institutions and ideas to enhance your community and help you personally have more impact, too,” she said.

For more on the Greater Green Bay Chamber of Commerce’s rebranding, visit its newly redesigned website, greatergbc.org.