Marlborough Group, Brand and Digital Transformation
Situation
Marlborough Fund Services, IFSL and the Select platform are the key entities that form the group of investment management and fund solutions businesses under the 'Marlborough' umbrella.
Managing over £10bn of assets and with over 250 employees in the UK across six sites, the group is a leading independent business within its sector.
With changes to the regulatory landscape and an internal desire to rationalise the services offered to a broad range of audiences, the board and brand and marketing teams led an initiative to explore the merits of modernising the brand strategy and structure.
We were invited to take part in a national, competitive pitch process to review each identity and make recommendations for growth.
Transformation
This project required every ounce of our vast experience in working with complex, multi-entity groups and our knowledge of the financial services industry.
Our journey began by engaging the board. During an off-site exploratory workshop we clarified the brief, objectives and vision for the business and brand. This helped establish the project's decision making team, who led on the key stages of the brand and business transformation.
Through workshops and surveys which engaged over half of the workforce and depth interviews with partners, clients and wider stakeholders, we uncovered the company's secret sauce. The ingredients that had underpinned the company's spectacular growth since 1985 and made the business unique today.
Marlborough's success had been driven by an absolute obsession with delivering for the customers. The attention to detail and willingness to innovate to enhance customer outcomes and experiences was unparalleled.
Working closely with the company HR lead, we tested, refined and then set out to codify these ingredients in the form of a new company purpose, mission, values and culture code. The new purpose 'Difference Made' was born, a reflection of the company's philosophy that Marlborough is a place where big ideas and ambitions are made real.
This purpose and strategic statements spanned the entire group, so naturally a detailed review of the brand hierarchy followed. Multiple models were explored and reviewed by client-side experts from a regulatory perspective, all with the goal of delivering the best outcomes for customers.
The individual entities were simplified into a single brand, creating the Marlborough Group. The services under the group were rationalised giving audiences and employees greater visibility of the Group's capabilities.
Group visuals were radically updated, recognising the need for an identity that matched the Group's size, importance and ambition. Difference Made can be seen in the logo. The traditional three pillars of finance (also representative of the Group's three core businesses) are disrupted at their midpoint, with each journey following a new, positive, upwards trajectory following Marlborough's engagement.
The palette, typography and photography were carefully crafted to create a brand both rich in heritage and blazing a trail for the future of the industry.
The project continued with the scoping, design and development of a Group-wide fund platform and website. The project is incredibly complex, guiding multiple audiences to tailored content and real-time information on hundreds of investment funds. The digital transformation project also included the development of dozens of microsites for partner organisations.
The brand launched at an all-company event, premiering with a brand film and launch collateral. The new brand guidelines, which cover company narrative through to visual execution, have been used to successfully create films / animations, podcasts, digital and display ads, signage, in-environment assets and updates to a suite of presentations, investor guides, letters and communications that ran into the thousands.
"This was a huge project and we needed to find the right agency, so we conducted a UK-wide pitch process.
Bert were different. Their process of CoCreation really stood out. As a group, we were committed to our rebrand and we knew that the whole business, not just the marketing team, would benefit from being involved in a deeply collaborative process.
Bert were true to their word. They took us all on the rebrand journey and the process was engaging, challenging and very enjoyable.
Most importantly, it resulted in an authentic new brand – one which resonates both internally and externally.
We definitely made the right decision in choosing Bert. The key to their success is that they cared as much as we did."
Nathan Glynn, Associate Director. Marlborough Group.
See the work: www.marlborough.co.uk
