A rebrand looking to escape the confines of a Namesake naming strategy

Wilson Group Financial

The Challenge: Craft a compelling new brand story, message and identity for a financial services company looking to expand

M&A and Wilson Group came to us with a puzzle piece logo holding their brand identity together… literally. They also came to us with a name they developed, Centrus, and left it up to us to create a new brand identity.

As a naming firm, some of the most challenging projects we face are ones where the client comes to us with a new name already selected. In fact, we are quite selective when we take on pre-named projects such as this. In this case however, we liked the name, agreed that it made sense for a financial institution, and believed we could build a story and image around it. But a story of what?

The "Ah-ha" Moment: A brand centered on trust and guidance

After an extensive discovery process, we set to work developing brand positions that reflected our understanding of both companies and how they function together under the Centrus name. We kept coming back to the idea of Centrus being your financial sherpa. With that in mind we crafted a final position of guidance. The position was bolstered by themes of trust, confidence, and relationship building. To build upon the position of guidance, everything from the lexicon to the brand imagery and graphics took on motifs of exploration and discovery.

As a result, the new brand visuals and messaging all became a metaphor for the financial journey. The resulting brand reinforced the name they came to us with by highlighting long-term journeys (Century/Centrus) and enduring trust (Trust/Centrus). To borrow from the tagline, it quickly became apparent that Centrus was there to chart your future so that you could simply live your life.