Strategic positioning connects the pieces for Millenium’s brand evolution
By Jacqui Gage-Brown, Jul 15 2018
Solidifying the core purpose and evolving the brand for Millenium Insurance Group, a well-respected and long-established insurance firm in the city, excited the HGB team. We knew the group’s strong history provided an opportunity for powerful strategic positioning, creating a meaningful experience for Millenium to pass on to its clients.
The background
Millenium Insurance Group is a respected Hamilton-based firm that takes a different approach to providing insurance. First up, encouraging clients to feel a sense of belonging within the team. This approach has stood Millenium in good stead for 35 years and has enabled founder, Ashley Carson and his 21 insurance advisers, to achieve success in both Hamilton and Auckland.
With the rapid growth of the company, and a change in its leadership structure, it was becoming increasingly clear to Millenium they had outgrown their branding. To pave the way for the future, Millenium needed to build on Ashley’s guidance and define its core purpose.
The challenge
HGB was tasked with uncovering Millenium’s DNA, the core purpose of the company and the values the team operated by, all within a strategic positioning exercise. The answers would provide a clear blueprint from which our designers could create a branding component that would enhance Millenium’s image in the market and better reflect the future direction of the company.
The process
Our team delved into the strategic positioning process, taking Millenium’s decision-makers on an engaging insight process to determine their ‘why’. By exploring their reasons for working within the insurance industry and specifically at Millenium, and by teasing out their personal ‘why’, we were able to uncover both overt and more obscure similarities.
These allowed us to identify the key drivers that formed the essence of Millenium to ensure the company’s DNA was solid, true and able to withstand application testing.
From here, the creative geniuses that sit in the HGB design studio were able to bring a modern, clean evolution to the Millenium brand, while honouring the role the puzzle piece plays in the organisation’s identity. Why? Because its core purpose should serve to support the company’s overarching business strategy and guiding principles, plus play an integral part in refreshing the brand.
The result
Millenium Insurance Group’s core purpose is to connect the pieces, and when presented with their new brand that depicted this insight, the team was thrilled. This purpose of connection, alongside the Group’s goal of ensuring all clients feel a sense of belonging as a Millenium Insurance customer, provided our designers with some great material to work with.
Taking Millenium’s existing branding which incorporated puzzle pieces, HGB’s design studio refreshed the insurance group’s logo, providing a more modern look and feel while also reflecting both the company’s core purpose and the sense of belonging that is at the heart of the company.
The overlapping puzzle piece provided an extra dimension to the brand, while the placement of the piece represented a fait accompli that can only be achieved by connecting all the pieces.
With the business’s core purpose, values, messaging and branding elements captured succinctly, Millenium’s founder, Ashley Carson stated he could happily relax, knowing the business’s strong DNA would continue.
