Marsh & McLennan Companies

New:  Logo, restoring the formal name and adding a symbol;
visual system; signature system

Launched:  December 7, 2010 (internal) ;  June 17, 2011 (external)

Story in brief:
Here was a perfect storm of conditions conducive to a high-impact rebranding:
- A new leader, with a new vision,
- celebrating (and consolidating) a successful turnaround,
- with a rebranding managed by the officer responsible for HR, as well as for corporate communications,
- informed strategically by its own teams of management consultants,
- counseled too by Lippincott, the identity firm it also owns.

Historically, "Marsh Mac" was essentially a giant insurance brokerage company which also owned consulting businesses (one being the Oliver Wyman Group, which currently encompasses our respected colleague Lippincott, acquired by the parent in 1986). This rebranding repositions Marsh Mac as "a professional services firm," a very different definition.

Eleven years ago, a previous CEO chose to adopt the initials MMC as communicative name (and logo, duly designed by Lippincott), in effect a step backward in corporate presence and a push forward for the unit brands -- Marsh, Mercer et al. Then came 9/11/2001, when Marsh & McLennan suffered devastating human losses (nearly 10% of the lives lost at the World Trade Center). Rebuilding was hampered in 2004 by regulatory issues, litigation and a consequent leadership change. For several years recovery continued with difficulty, in both insurance and consulting sectors.

Then in 2008, Brian Duperreault was named CEO, and set in motion what has proved to be "a notable turnaround," based on a shared vision of elite status in the professional services arena. His restructuring spun out the Kroll security business as a poor fit, and streamlined the company's operating segments to include two groupings: Marsh and Guy Carpenter under Risk and Insurance Services, and Mercer and Oliver Wyman under Consulting. When the time came to remove "Kroll" from the collective corporate signature, Duperreault asked vice chairman David Nadler and Orlando Ashford, Chief Human Relations & Communications Officer to co-lead a rebranding and to engage Lippincott, with everything up for review. "The cheapest thing would be to take whiteout and put it over Kroll" Ashford told me. "But if we were going to climb on buildings and put up new signs all over the world, let's put up something that creates new energy, both internally and externally."

For over a year, Ashford had already engaged in conversations on positioning with his colleague Suzanne Hogan, Lippincott's chief operating officer. Two goals were clear:
1) Shift "Marsh & McLennan Companies" from its low-profile holding company model toward a more visible "parent company" model, a parent that adds value and is a source of pride to its businesses, but without overshadowing them;
2) Redefine the parent as a broadly capable, indeed an elite professional services firm... pragmatic, collaborative, true partners with customers, impactful in service delivery.

The first naming decision, Ashford reports, was to abandon MMC, "which never really resonated with customers or employees." Creation of an Accenture-like new name was then considered, but retention of "Marsh & McLennan" won out for its 100-plus years of equity, and generally high regard. (Though a bit long for a communicative name, it's within the five-syllable limit.) It was then felt helpful to add the formal-name extender "Companies," to support perception of breadth and multiplicity.

As for design, there are two conditions (in particular) in which a symbol-dominant logo is the stronger strategy than a wordmark-dominant logo:
- when the name is long, complex, or otherwise not good material for wordmark design (which certainly applies to "Marsh & McLennan Companies");
- when business units will continue to go to market in their own names, but can both benefit from and contribute to their parent brand as well, a visual symbol can provide the needed endorsement bridge.

The symbol that Lippincott's design team appropriately provided is a multi-faceted, optically engaging mix of shapes and forms that almost incidentally can be seen as a monogram M. Its angular shapes, and palette of blue tones, provide graphic elements for the visual system that will add a consistent "look and feel" to both corporate and brand communications.

Six months, between internal and external launches, is an unusually generous gestation period. The December 7 internal launch was staged as a major corporate event, a "Town Hall" attended by 20,000 of 55,000 employees in leased movie theatres around the globe, others by telephone. The CEO spoke to the spirit and meaning of the new brand, and revealed the mark (with musical fanfare) to spontaneous and sustained applause. When Duperreault saw the energizing power of this event, he asked his team to build a plan for maximum-impact public launch. The result, launched June 17 -- a rebranding campaign (and corporate tagline) called "Partnering for Impact," including a TV commercial that can be accessed at the campaign microsite www.PartneringImpact.com.

In sum, the purpose of this rebranding is to push the parent forward again, "to reintroduce Marsh & McLennan Companies to the market with a refreshed Company brand, a new visual identity and a compelling story." As Ashford puts it, "You have to go back to 9/11 to see what this company has been through, where we started, and how far we have come under Brian's leadership – the kind of energy we're starting to show. This rebranding captures and channels that energy, and gives people permission to think big thoughts about this company."

 

Credits:
C.E.O. - Brian Duperreault
C.M.O. - Orlando Ashford, Chief Human Relations & Communications Officer
C.B.O. - Silvia Davi, Corporate Communications & Brand
Identity counsel & design - Lippincott

First Impressions:
Strategy: A significant, necessary and credible step toward "great company" status.
Naming:  "MMC" in 2004 was weak, best understood as (at some level) a strategic retreat to obscurity.  Restoration of the full formal name was thus a good thing to do. Yet it's long.  I wonder whether "McLennan Companies" might not have done the trick, with brevity as well as distinctiveness. 
Design:  Functional, effective.  (Oddly, I find the symbol more appealing when I see it as a kite-like abstraction than as an 'M.')

Other Comments:

 

Corporate Brand Matrix ratings:  
0% structural,  95% strategic,  5% functional