CASE STUDY · INTERNATIONAL REBRAND
The Brand That Built a Category Was Being Erased by It. The Rebrand Made It Unmistakable Again.
A complete international brand reconstruction for Kinesio Holding Corporation, inventor of Kinesio Tape and the Kinesio Taping Method. This is not a BrandMe360 client engagement. This is five years of direct employment experience, with Romie Martinez serving as the sole marketing professional at Kinesio, supported by a creative team of three. The art and website architecture built during her tenure are still live on kinesiotape.com today.
Global
SCOPE DEMESTIC & INTERNATIONAL
4
DISTINCT AUDIENCE SEGMENTS
10+
EPISODE VIDEO SERIES PRODUCED
Still Live
ON KINESIOTAPE.COM TODAY
Note on this case study:
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This work was not performed as a BrandMe360 | BHIA contracted engagement. It represents seven years of direct employment experience by Romie Martinez, Founder and Principal of BrandMe360 | BHIA, serving as the sole marketing professional at Kinesio Holding Corporation alongside a creative team of three. It is included here as part of her professional portfolio and as the true origin story of the intelligence that now powers BrandMe360 | BHIA.
BrandMe360 was not even a thought yet when this work was being done. The proprietary market intelligence Romie built and applied during her years at Kinesio did not have a brand name. It was simply how she worked. She referred to it privately as her market intelligence, her best kept secret, and the key to every marketing decision she made. It was not something she talked about publicly. It was the foundation underneath everything she built, the reason campaigns performed, the reason the rebrand held, and the reason the results lasted.
For more than a decade, Romie kept that intelligence close. She used it at Kinesio. She used it at the New Mexico Army National Guard. She used it across every engagement in her 25-plus year career. She never named it. She never packaged it. She never offered it to anyone else.
Then she looked at the New Mexico business landscape and realized what she had been keeping to herself. She knew firsthand how this intelligence could change the way New Mexico brands market, how much more effectively, efficiently, and strategically every business in this state could operate if they had access to the same foundation she had been standing on all along. That realization became BrandMe360 | BHIA. The name came when the idea arrived: it was time to stop keeping it a secret and start sharing it with every brand in New Mexico that deserved to know what she knew.
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​This Kinesio case study is not just a portfolio piece. It is proof of what happens when that intelligence is applied at the highest level of brand challenge, a globally diluted category, a founder legacy under threat, and a rebrand that had to work in every market on earth. It worked. The work is still live today.
THE INTERNATIONAL EMPLOYER
Kinesio Holding Corporation - Albuquerque, New Mexico
Dr. Kenzo Kase (1940 to 2023) was a Japanese chiropractor and the inventor of Kinesio Tape and the globally recognized Kinesio Taping Method. He revolutionized sports medicine and physical therapy by pioneering an elastic therapeutic tape that mimics human skin, a breakthrough that transformed rehabilitative care worldwide. Kinesio Holding Corporation was headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Dr. Kase's home base through 2023.
THE PROBLEM
A Brand Under Threat. Competitors Were Following Dr. Kase's Footsteps So Closely They Were Becoming Indistinguishable From the Original.
Dr. Kenzo Kase created the name Kinesio, which was trademarked and protected in more than 20 countries for over a decade. When the trademark was not renewed, companies across the globe began naming themselves Kinesio or some variation of it, believing it was simply short for kinesiology or that the name was now open for use. Whether that was the original intent or not, the result was the same: the name Dr. Kase had built into a globally recognized brand was suddenly shared by dozens of unrelated companies in markets around the world. The brand dilution was severe and widespread. Even Wikipedia, despite hours of effort by Romie Martinez to correct the record, still conflates Kinesio and KT Tape as if they are the same product or the same lineage.
They are not. KT Tape was founded in 2008, when its founder, after being taped by Dr. Kase during the 2008 Olympics, decided to launch her own elastic therapeutic tape company. KT Tape came after Kinesio. It was inspired by Kinesio. It was not Kinesio. That distinction, obvious to anyone inside the industry, had become invisible to the general public and to most digital platforms by the time the rebrand began.
Adding to the complexity, a marketing firm had been engaged by Kinesio to explore a total rebranding. The work produced by that firm included the concept now known as Tape With Wisdom. Kinesio ultimately decided not to have the outside firm execute the full rebrand and instead brought the work in house. That decision meant the rebrand, from strategy through execution, would be owned and delivered internally by the marketing department. A marketing department of one professional and a creative team of three.
Dr. Kase began exploring a comprehensive rebranding to reclaim market clarity, restore brand authority, and regain momentum in both domestic and international markets. The challenge was specific: make Kinesio visually and conceptually different from every competitor in every market, domestic and international, without abandoning the heritage that made Kinesio the original.
"The solution was not to compete on tape color or packaging novelty. It was to return to the original differentiator: the methodology itself. Dr. Kase's taping method, his clinical philosophy, and his four decades of practitioner relationships were assets no competitor could replicate. The art and website architecture built to make that distinction visible are still live on kinesiotape.com today."
- Romie Martinez
THE SCOPE
A Complete Brand Reconstruction Across Every Touchpoint.
By the early 2000s, competing brands had emerged following Dr. Kase's premise. Rock Tape, Thera Tape, and others entered the market. One company took the initials of "Kinesio Tape" and branded themselves as KT Tape. By 2018, marketplace confusion had grown significantly as competitors followed Dr. Kase's methodology, developed their own tape products, and positioned themselves as alternatives to the original.
PRODUCT PACKAGING
Partial redesign of all Kinesio product boxes across select SKU. Select products on select retail and clinical shelf worldwide.
WEBSITE REBUILD
kinesio.com (now kinesiotape.com) rebuilt from the ground up by Romelia Martinez: full site architecture, structure, and creative. Still live today.
SOCIAL AND MOBILE
All social media platforms unified under the new brand identity. The first ever Kinesio Holding Corporation mobile taping app was Romie Martinez's original conception, developed and created entirely by her from concept through delivery.
MESSAGE ARCHITECTURE
Messaging refined for four distinct audiences: medical and clinical professionals, retail consumers, wellness practitioners, and international distributors.
THE PRODUCTION
"Tape With Wisdom." Filmed, Directed, Edited, and Designed. A 10-Plus Episode Educational Series With Notah Begay for Kinesio University and Global Practitioners and Distributors Worldwide.
The "Tape With Wisdom" series was not a retail campaign and was not outsourced to a production company. Romelia Martinez filmed, directed, edited, and designed every episode in the 10-plus part series featuring Notah Begay, bringing the full production from concept to final cut entirely in-house.
The series was built specifically for Kinesio University and for Kinesio's global network of partnered practitioners and distributors worldwide. It extended the rebrand into a cultural and performance-driven educational narrative that connected Kinesio's therapeutic heritage and methodology to the practitioners and distributors who built their professional identities on Dr. Kase's method. By keeping the entire production under one creative director, the series maintained the precise visual and tonal consistency that the rebrand demanded across every market it reached. Every frame, every cut, every graphic treatment was built to the same standard as the packaging, the website, and the app, delivering a unified brand experience from the clinic wall to the practitioner's screen.
The Art and Website Architecture, All Built by Romelia Martinez, Are Still Live on kinesiotape.com Today.
The rebrand was introduced to the world through a global email launch series written, designed, and deployed by Romie Martinez, reaching all medical distributors, practitioners, and the rehabilitation community worldwide, alongside a massive Tape With Wisdom social media campaign that extended the rebrand across every platform in every market. See the World Peace Tape Case Study. The response from Kinesio's network was immediate and positive. Partners, practitioners, distributors, and clients experienced renewed excitement and loyalty. The rebrand generated new partnerships, new vendor relationships, new distributors, and new practitioners entering the Kinesio ecosystem. The e-commerce website, every graphic element, every web banner, the site architecture, and the first ever Kinesio mobile taping app, all conceived and built by Romelia Martinez during her seven years as the sole marketing professional at Kinesio Holding Corporation, remain visibly and noticeably different from every competitor in the elastic therapeutic tape category domestically and internationally, and are still live on kinesiotape.com today.
DELIVERABLES
Representative Scope
WHAT WAS DELIVERED
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Complete product packaging redesign across select Kinesio SKUs
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Kinesio logo redesign and renewal, logo updated to preserve brand heritage while signaling a bold new era, conceived and executed by the creative lead
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Kinesio e-commerce website complete rebuild, full site architecture, all graphic elements, web banners, structural layout, and visual identity conceived and built entirely by Romie Martinez, still live on kinesiotape.com today
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Social media platform rebranding across all channels
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Messaging architecture for four distinct audience segments
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Kinesio Holding Corporation mobile taping app, the first ever Kinesio mobile taping app, conceived, developed, designed, and created entirely by Romie Martinez from initial concept through final delivery
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Global email launch series, a comprehensive email campaign series written, designed, and deployed by Romie Martinez to introduce the Kinesio rebrand, Kinesio Tape, and Kinesio University to all medical distributors, practitioners, and the rehabilitation community worldwide
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"Tape With Wisdom" 10-plus episode educational video series with Notah Begay for Kinesio University and global practitioners and distributors: filmed, directed, edited, and designed in full by Romelia Martinez
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Supporting campaign materials domestic and international