The Challenge: A firm of financial advisors, part of an international award winning partnership, were involved in internal discussions concerning their identity vis-à-vis the partnership and their overall strategic focus. Their main concern was how to grow their brand while still retaining their status and relationship with the partnership. They also wished to develop the market for specific solutions that were not necessarily delivered under the partnership brand. Their challenge was finding a way to do this while still allowing the brand to sit next to overall partnership brand without overshadow or conflict. At this stage, it approached Market Accents for assistance.
The Solution: We engaged the directors in a brand identity and positioning exercise which included a strategic workshop to understand and flesh out the potential solutions. As part of the exercise, we looked in detail at their various propositions and their current customer base across those propositions.
The firm also required the revised identity to serve as an overall umbrella brand for the their current and future portfolio of associated companies, while allowing for individual brand identities for their sub brands. In order to develop the appropriate brand architecture and positioning, we included a brand communications audit to determine the strength of their footprint. We then analysed the strengths of the various attributes that had been identified.
During our analysis, we also mapped their direct competitors to understand the strategies and strength of the key players, and to help identify the appropriate space for the new identity positioning. We finally prepared a conceptual roadmap, brand DNA and positioning statement that explained the values and attributes and other elements that should be included.
Our Success: Our recommendations for the brand and identity positioning were presented to the partnership and accepted. Since then, the firm has fully adopted our recommended brand DNA and positioning and we continue to advise on marketing and communications.