Bluebird Branding is a strategy-led branding agency that helps organizations define, shape, and communicate their unique identities. It works closely with clients across industries, drawing on creative expertise and market insight to build brands that support business objectives, engage target audiences, and present a consistent identity across platforms. Through a collaborative process, the agency involves clients at every stage, from discovery and strategy to visual identity and brand narrative, ensuring each client’s brand reflects their values and vision. Bluebird serves multiple industries, including healthcare, energy, hospitality, financial services, construction, and professional services.
The agency was founded in 2015 and is based in Colorado.
Bluebird Branding was not conceived as a formal business plan. It took shape through a mix of circumstance, professional instinct, and timing.
Marcus Fitzgibbons, founder and CEO of Bluebird Branding, was in a period of personal uncertainty, balancing the need for stability with the demands of a growing family. He began taking on freelance work while exploring his next move. During that period, a former colleague asked him to help with website design. That single project quickly led to others. Clients from Marcus’s previous agency reached out, drawn by familiarity and trust built over years of collaboration. Many viewed him as the person who best understood their brands and how they had been shaped.
At the time, Marcus was not focused on launching an agency. He was simply drawing on his experience where it was needed. That perspective shifted after a conversation with his mentor, Dan, who offered a direct piece of guidance. Waiting for complete certainty, he warned, would only delay action indefinitely.
The idea solidified the following day on a ski lift at Arapahoe Basin. Looking out over the clear Colorado sky, Marcus and his future business partner remarked on the conditions. It was, as they put it, a Bluebird Day. The name and the direction of the agency came together in that moment.
The early goal was straightforward: build stability and keep moving forward.
As client work increased, the business began to take on a more defined shape. Marcus soon reconnected with Jim Miller, a former colleague with a background in brand strategy and PR. Jim began collaborating on projects and quickly became a key part of Bluebird’s evolving approach, formally joining the company as Chief Strategy Officer and as a Partner.
Not long after, Karl Peters joined the team. With extensive experience in high-level creative execution, Karl brought strong creative leadership and a desire for more hands-on, purpose-driven work. Over time, he became a partner and stepped into the role of Chief Creative Officer.
Together, the three helped shape Bluebird Branding into the strategy-led agency it is today.
As client work expanded, Marcus identified a broader issue in the market. Many companies were being sold design-led solutions such as logos, websites, and marketing materials without the strategic framework required to support long-term growth or measurable return. While these brands often appeared polished, they lacked underlying clarity, consistency, and direction.
Bluebird Branding was established to address that disconnect.
From the outset, the agency made strategy a core part of its offerings. Before any design or creative execution took place, clients worked through questions of identity, values, and voice. The emphasis was never on visual appeal alone, but on creating brands with clarity, coherence, and the capacity to grow over time.
Today, that philosophy remains evident in Bluebird Branding’s work. The agency partners with a range of clients, from newer entrants to established names, and treats brands as business assets, not merely visual identifiers.
SME BUSINESS REVIEW spoke with Mr. Fitzgibbons about how Bluebird Branding partners with clients to build brands that align with their goals, engage audiences, and maintain consistency across channels. Here’s what he had to say.
Interview Excerpts
How does Bluebird Branding collaborate with clients to ensure each brand story is aligned with their unique goals and audience, and what role does client input play in the creative process?
Collaboration bridges everything. It runs through every project and helps Bluebird build relationships based on shared effort and active participation. The agency does not view its clients as passive recipients of work, but as partners who take part in their brand evolution from the outset.
Each project begins with a discovery and strategy phase designed to develop a thorough understanding of the business. This stage examines business strategy and objectives, customer insight, competitive context, and perspectives from across the company. Through workshops, guided discussions, and research, the Bluebird team works closely with internal stakeholders to understand not only what the company does, but why it exists and where it is headed. Partner input is critical throughout this stage. Leadership insight, internal viewpoints, and first-hand experience ensure the brand strategy reflects the company’s character rather than assumptions that could result in a misaligned brand.
Once the strategic direction is established, Bluebird’s creative staff bring it to life through visual identity, brand narrative, and tools that maintain brand consistency across channels. Partners stay involved throughout this phase through collaborative feedback sessions. This keeps any and all responses from the client, aligned with the strategy and prevents decisions from being driven by personal preference.
The process follows a partnership model and brings professional expertise together with client participation at every step. Clients see their values and perspectives reflected in the final brand, and they can trust that each decision rests on purpose, audience understanding, and long-term business goals.
How does Bluebird Branding measure the success of a brand story, and what key indicators does the agency use to track its impact in the marketplace?
The success of a brand story is measured by how effectively the brand can support the long-term business growth goals of Bluebird’s partners, rather than how it performs at the launch phase alone.
From the outset, each engagement is grounded in strategy, ensuring the brand story is directly aligned with business goals, audience needs, and market positioning. These foundations create a clear benchmark for evaluating success both immediately and over time, whether that is greater clarity in how teams communicate the brand, stronger consistency across touchpoints, or a brand system that continues to support the business as it grows.
Beyond short-term performance metrics, the agency places strong emphasis on building brands designed to last. By translating strategic insight into timeless creative execution, Bluebird ensures partners are left with a brand that continues to reflect who they are as they evolve, protecting the investment and reducing the need for frequent redesigns or reactive updates.
Success is evaluated through a combination of qualitative and quantitative indicators. These include improved clarity and consistency across touchpoints, stronger internal adoption, increased confidence in sales and marketing conversations, and more effective audience engagement. On the performance side, the team monitors signals such as website behavior, lead quality, conversion patterns, and post-launch market response. Examples of this can be found throughout the agency’s 2025 whitepaper Branding: The ROI You Can’t Ignore. Bluebird details how one of their partners in the construction industry gained a 90% shortlist rate and 50% win rate as a result of their rebranded portfolios and sales assets.
Rather than viewing branding as a one-time deliverable, Bluebird measures success by the durability of the work as well. When a brand remains aligned, adaptable, and credible years after launch, it represents a strong return on investment and a meaningful contribution to long-term value.
How does Bluebird Branding ensure each brand communicates its unique voice, and what steps does the agency take to maintain consistency across multiple sectors?
Ensuring each brand communicates its unique voice starts with listening. Every organization has its own personality, history, and audience, and understanding these elements is an essential part of the branding process before defining how the brand should speak and appear in the world across every touchpoint.
From there, clear messaging frameworks and brand guidelines are developed to define the brands’ tone of voice, messaging, and associated personality. These tools create alignment across teams and channels internally, allowing brands to remain consistent while still evolving over time.
A strong example of this approach is our full-scale branding project with our partners Core Electric Cooperative, an organization that had relied on a legacy identity for many decades. Bluebird worked closely with Core’s leadership and community stakeholders to modernize everything from the name, the brand strategy and messaging to visual identity and digital experience.
By grounding every decision in strategic insight; starting with defining Core’s refreshed voice and tagline “The Energy to Thrive”, to then building a flexible visual system and comprehensive guidelines - the brand now communicates clearly and consistently across member communications, fleet graphics, signage, digital platforms, and internal touchpoints.
This cohesive rollout ensured that Core’s brand works seamlessly in both industry and community-facing contexts, reinforcing recognition and strengthening member trust in a sector where clarity and reliability are essential. The work later received industry recognition, earning a 2021 GDUSA American Graphic Design Award for Core’s monument and signage family, demonstrating how a well-built brand system can remain both distinctive and durable wherever it appears.
By grounding every project in strategy rather than trends, brands are equipped with systems that scale as they do, ensuring consistency across sectors without sacrificing individuality.
What sets Bluebird Branding apart from other agencies operating in the same domain?
What truly sets Bluebird Branding apart is the way we approach partnership.
As already noted, collaboration steers our process. Clients aren’t handed a process and asked to sign off at the end, they are involved throughout. We create space for conversation, questions, and shared understanding, ensuring the final brand feels authentically aligned and genuinely owned by the people behind it.
That collaborative approach is supported by more than 100 years of combined experience across the team. Having worked with organizations at every stage, from startups finding their footing to established companies evolving for their next chapter, we bring perspective, pattern recognition, and strategic clarity to each engagement.
Our experience spans a wide range of sectors, including construction, infrastructure, healthcare, hospitality, financial services, and professional services. This cross-industry exposure allows us to bring fresh thinking to every project and draw on insights learned in one space to help brands stand out in another.
Above all, Bluebird is strategy-led. We focus on building brands designed to scale, giving organizations the clarity and consistency they need. That long-term mindset is what keeps clients coming back, not for one-off projects, but as ongoing partners invested in the future of their brand.
What inspires the creative team at Bluebird Branding, and how do their personal experiences influence the work the agency produces?
The creative team at Bluebird Branding is inspired first and foremost by people, their stories, challenges, and ambitions. Every brand represents real individuals working toward something meaningful, and understanding that human context is what fuels the work they do, and therefore the brand they have.
With backgrounds spanning multiple industries and disciplines, each team member brings a unique perspective shaped by decades of real-world experience. These varied viewpoints encourage thoughtful discussion, stronger ideas, and creative solutions informed by lived experience rather than assumption.
That diversity plays a vital role in how brands are shaped. It allows the team to approach each project with empathy, curiosity, and intention, taking the time to understand not just what a business does, but why it matters. Rather than relying solely on trends, creativity is guided by insight and connection, resulting in brand solutions that feel authentic, grounded, and purpose-led.
How does Bluebird Branding stay ahead of emerging trends in branding, and how are these insights incorporated into the agency’s work with clients?
Staying ahead of trends begins with calm observation rather than impulsive reaction. Bluebird Branding continuously monitors shifts in consumer behavior, technology, and industry landscapes, pertaining to whichever organization we are working with at the time, while remaining grounded in proven strategic branding principles.
Rather than chasing what’s new for the sake of novelty, each trend is evaluated through a strategic lens, considering whether it adds long-term value or risks diluting brand reputation or clarity. This ensures brands remain modern and relevant without becoming dependent on short-lived ideas.
When trends are incorporated, they are applied thoughtfully, selectively, and always in service of the brand’s broader vision and long-term goals. This gives clients confidence in the long-term strength of their brand; one built to evolve naturally while staying grounded in who they are and what they stand for.
What are Bluebird Branding’s plans and outlook for the next five years?
Our focus is on continued, intentional growth. We plan to further strengthen our strategy-led approach, deepen relationships with existing partners, and continue partnering with organizations across various industries that are navigating moments of brand evolution and change.
Rather than growth for growth’s sake, the focus remains on impact, fostering long-term partnerships and supporting brands that are building something lasting. As we continue to evolve, we remain committed to delivering thoughtful strategy, timeless creative, and clarity that helps organizations move forward and grow with confidence.
ABOUT | MARCUS FITZGIBBONS
Marcus Fitzgibbons is the founder and CEO of Bluebird Branding. As CEO, Marcus oversees the company’s strategic direction, ensuring alignment between business growth, operational efficiency, and brand innovation. He plays an active role in high-level decision-making, team leadership, and financial planning, while fostering a culture rooted in creativity, collaboration, and excellence.
With more than 30 years of experience in the creative and branding industry, Marcus remains deeply involved in the agency’s creative work. He leads comprehensive branding initiatives that shape brand identity, storytelling, and market positioning, ensuring cohesive visual and strategic execution across every touchpoint.
Bluebird Branding was built on Marcus’s belief that strong brands begin with clarity and trust. His ability to balance long-term business vision with hands-on creative leadership has helped position Bluebird as a trusted partner for organizations across healthcare, energy, hospitality, financial services, construction, and professional services.
