Oliver Wyman's Lippincott helps Bain Capital redesign its brand
Oliver Wyman subsidiary Lippincott has helped Bain Capital to design its brand strategy. Lippincott helped Bain Capital to map out the dimensions of its company, uniting independent business units behind a single brand.
Creative consultancy Lippincott specialises in brand and innovation advisory work. Having been founded in 1943, the firm has shaped some of the global capitalism’s most recognisable brands, from Coca-Cola and Samsung to Starbucks and Delta. The firm’s capabilities are designed to help companies face the future and capitalise on the unprecedented growth opportunities which the disruptive forces of the modern digital market provides. Lippincott is a part of leading management consultancy Oliver Wyman, a collaboration which the company says allows it to draw on deep industry knowledge and specialised expertise to drive enduring impact for its clients.
Most recently, this intended impact was directed at one of the world's leading multi-asset alternative investment firms, Bain Capital. Since its founding by William Bain Junior in 1984, Bain Capital has applied a combination of insight and experience to build one of the world’s leading private multi-asset investment firms. Gradually, this tactic has organically expanded to include numerous asset classes while also establishing a significant global presence.
Despite its progress, however, Bain Capital’s leadership had become acutely aware they needed to define a formal brand strategy, particularly as it picked up various targeted acquisitions along the way. This would help to articulate the values at the core of the firm’s success, as well as uniting its businesses behind a single ‘story’. As a result of this desire, Bain Capital partnered with creative consultancy Lippincott. A combined team subsequently mapped out objectives and challenges, with an initial three-month architecture and positioning project rapidly transforming into an 18-month collaboration that touched every dimension of the brand.
Brand unity
The Lippincott team collaborated with Bain Capital to ultimately launch a refreshed parent brand. Research with Bain Capital’s employees, external partners and investors had already revealed a clear and consistent belief that what made Bain Capital unique, regardless of business, geography or tenure, was its culture, or the way the organisation thinks, works and treats people. The insight yielded a low-hanging fruit for the change project, as Bain Capital’s brand was already embedded throughout the organisation, while it had never been fully expressed.
The Bain Capital team subsequently worked with Lippincott to unite the firm’s businesses through a shared symbol. In combination with a new brand architecture, logo, visual system and guidance, Lippincott helped bring to life a Bain Capital brand that expresses the firm’s stellar reputation and supports its continuing efforts always to create a lasting impact. At the same time, Lippincott also worked with the Bain Capital team to create a complete activation plan, culminating in a firm-wide Town Hall to launch the brand, and maximise engagement and investment in that new, more pronounced, identity. The collaboration yielded the creation of a refreshed parent brand, which also holds the flexibility to address individual audiences, capabilities and the unique characteristics of each Bain Capital business.
A statement on Lippincott’s website celebrating the project said, “Collaborating with internal teams, we created a new identity to unite the businesses through an ownable, shared symbol. Its connected forms speak to how Bain Capital pulls together the right people and pieces to make an impact. The forward-facing beam illuminates the way forward. Its colors celebrate the brand’s heritage, with a modernized blue and distinctive red that pay homage to the firm’s history. The new visual system integrates elements of the symbol to create a distinctive Bain Capital expression across print and digital channels.”
Related: Oliver Wyman completes acquisition of design thinking consultancy 8works.
