Getting a New Message to Market in Four Weeks: A Phased Repositioning for J.D. Power
J.D. Power was being marketed for sale, and the market read it as a car company. The site had to show a multi-industry intelligence business — without touching the global platform underneath it, and without waiting for the rebuild to finish.
The work
The Challenge: The Website Was Telling a Buyer a Smaller Story Than the Truth
J.D. Power sells consumer intelligence across a long list of industries, and the market read the name as car awards. In 2016 that became urgent: McGraw Hill Financial was marketing the business for sale, and the website was the most public statement of what the company was — telling a buyer a smaller story than the truth. The US site was the surface that had to change, and it shared one global installation with every other market, none of which were in scope.
The Strategy: Release the Message First, Rebuild Underneath It
Two phases, releasing as they went, so the message could reach the market before the rebuild was finished.
- Phase one put the message up in four weeks. The homepage and landing pages were built as static HTML served outside Drupal entirely — the pages announcing the repositioning had the least need for editorial workflow, so serving them outside the CMS bought weeks and cost nothing anyone would miss.
- Phase two rebuilt underneath, without touching configuration. A custom theme delivering the new design with code that bypasses the legacy layout system rather than replacing it, so the global sites kept running on the architecture they shared.
- Packaged to deploy as a unit. Supporting blocks and views bundled with the theme rather than reassembled by hand per environment.
The Outcomes: The Deadline Belonged to the Transaction, and the Message Met It
The message met a deadline that belonged to a transaction rather than to a project plan.
- Growth | The new brand message live in four weeks, while the architecture behind it was still being untangled | The updated messaging and web experience a core part of McGraw Hill Financial’s strategy to market the business; XIO Group acquired J.D. Power in a deal reported at $1.1 billion
- Engagement | Press releases, insights and case studies giving the repositioning somewhere to keep proving itself after launch | No retraining and no productivity hole, because the editorial process did not change at all
The detail
Why it mattered
- The name had become shorthand for one of its industries. For more than fifty years J.D. Power has sold consumer intelligence — proprietary benchmarks, deep data and the Voice of the Consumer captured across seventeen offices worldwide, for brands in a long list of industries. The market knew it for car awards, and the automotive association was strong enough to obscure everything else.
- In 2016 that stopped being a positioning problem and became an urgent one. McGraw Hill Financial was marketing J.D. Power for sale. The website was the most public statement of what the company actually was, and it was telling a buyer a smaller story than the truth.
- One installation served J.D. Power globally. The US site was the surface that had to change. Every other market ran on the same architecture with a legacy theme, and none of them were in scope — so any change to shared configuration put sites no one had asked to touch in the blast radius.
- Years of accumulated structure sat underneath. Many content types, page layouts built on a legacy layout system, and editorial teams who had learned all of it. A conventional redesign would have rebuilt that configuration and retrained the people using it, on the timetable of a sale process.
- And the standard playbook for a redesign was the wrong one. Going dark for months and landing whole is the usual answer. The message here had a deadline that belonged to the transaction rather than to the project plan.
How it was built
- Two phases, releasing as they went. So the message could reach the market before the rebuild was finished.
- Phase one put the message up in four weeks. The homepage and landing pages were built as static HTML served outside Drupal entirely. That is an unusual recommendation and the right call under the constraint: the pages announcing the repositioning were exactly the pages with the least need for editorial workflow, so serving them outside the CMS bought weeks and cost nothing anyone would miss. The new brand message was live while the architecture behind it was still being untangled.
- Phase two rebuilt the site properly underneath. As designs cleared approval, the existing architecture was mapped onto the new design and implemented as a custom theme — one that had to leave the site’s configuration and underlying architecture intact, because the global sites were running on it.
- Which decided the engineering. The theme delivers the new design with custom code that bypasses the legacy layout system rather than replacing it, so page layout keeps working as it did. Supporting custom blocks and views were packaged with the Features module so the theme and its dependencies deploy as a unit rather than being reassembled by hand in each environment.
- Several stale Features exports were brought up to date on the way through. Not in scope, and cheaper to do than to work around.
What moved
- The site presented the company as what it is. A global intelligence business working across many industries, with automotive as one of them rather than the whole of them. Press releases, insight articles and case studies gave the repositioning somewhere to keep proving itself after launch.
- The editorial process did not change at all. Existing features and content fields behaved exactly as they had before the new theme, which meant no retraining and no productivity hole at the moment the company most needed to be publishing.
- The global sites were untouched throughout. Which was the constraint the whole engineering approach existed to satisfy.
- And the transaction closed. The work was done alongside J.D. Power’s own branding agency, and the updated messaging and web experience became a core part of McGraw Hill Financial’s strategy to market the business. XIO Group acquired J.D. Power in a deal reported at $1.1 billion. Contribution, not cause — but the deadline was real and the message met it.
Repositioning under deadline questions
How fast can a brand repositioning reach the market online?
J.D. Power’s new message was live in four weeks. The homepage and landing pages were built as static HTML served outside the CMS entirely — the pages announcing the repositioning were exactly the ones with the least need for editorial workflow, so serving them outside it bought weeks and cost nothing anyone would miss.
Can a website redesign avoid disrupting editorial teams?
Yes, if the redesign leaves the machinery alone. The rebuilt theme bypassed the legacy layout system rather than replacing it, so existing features and content fields behaved exactly as before — no retraining, and no productivity hole at the moment the company most needed to be publishing.
How do you redesign one site on a shared global platform?
By treating the shared configuration as out of bounds. Every J.D. Power market ran on the same installation, and none of the others were in scope — so the new design shipped as a theme that left the site’s configuration and underlying architecture intact, and the global sites were untouched throughout.
Can a website repositioning affect a company sale?
It can contribute, and this one did. For the J.D. Power engagement by Pare & Co: the new brand message live in four weeks and the site presenting the company as the multi-industry intelligence business it is. The updated messaging and web experience became a core part of McGraw Hill Financial’s strategy to market the business, and XIO Group acquired J.D. Power in a deal reported at $1.1 billion — contribution, not cause, but the deadline was real and the message met it.
Client leadership
Doug Sisko
Doug Sisko’s specialty is growth and conversion strategy. He has led repositioning work delivered in phases so the market hears the new message on time.