Brand and activation
The business case for brand evolution.
How we helped biBerk transform their organization and growth potential.
Background.
During its first six years, biBerk, an insurance company catering to small businesses, had experienced rapid success. Search engine marketing (SEM) was a huge driver of revenue and visibility online, often leading to 100% year-over-year revenue growth. We’d been there since the beginning, supplying marketing consulting and helping manage their day-to-day ad spend.
Despite such impressive numbers, at the beginning of 2022, our partners at Google forecasted a limit to the potential SEM volume within 18 months, based on organic market growth. Something needed to shift.
We were all asking ourselves: how could we refine and create additional demand for the brand without straying too far from everything we’d built?
Getting real.
As long-time partners familiar with the business goals of the organization, we saw the potential for distinct branding to capture more market share and bolster the bottom line. We also knew these critical things to be true:
- We couldn’t hit pause until we found the answer. Online small business insurance is a saturated, fast-moving market. Any changes we wanted to make had to be balanced against the need for short-term flexibility.
- Testing would be a requirement. biBerk is a data-driven organization that values objectivity when making decisions. We needed to find a way to turn a creative pursuit into a process that could be vetted throughout the company and with customers before committing publicly to a new direction.
- Previous brand projects had failed. Admittedly, we’d been part of a few false starts trying to evolve the brand through simple messaging or visual tweaks, new search strategies, etc. As part of this new process, we had to keep in mind what didn’t work before to avoid making the same missteps.
- The word “brand” was a sticky subject. There was initial hesitation to label the initiative as a “brand project,” partly due to wide-ranging views on what a brand really consists of. We would have to tread carefully and methodically to prove the power of branding–and bring everyone along for the ride.
Our approach:
A strategic journey in three phases.
With our guidance, and trust from company leadership, biBerk’s internal teams embarked on a 14-month process to redefine their brand identity, from foundational messaging to visual design, and finally to a multi-channel market launch.
“FPO pull quote from Rakesh regarding initial buy-in will go here.”
Rakesh Gupta
President at biBerk
Phase 1: Brand foundation.
35 weeks. 18 collaboration meetings. 2,000+ survey respondents.
To drive internal buy-in and address the hesitance around “branding” projects, we started with a research-driven audit of biBerk’s current messaging and positioning, as well as a look at the competition. We wanted to find the gaps with quantitative proof as well as engage stakeholders to build alignment around the definition and importance of positioning.
The result:
Through numerous surveys, workshops and conversations, we collectively realized the opportunity to define biBerk’s mission, vision and values for the first time. This refined brand direction came to life with a new brand persona, The Nerd, that would inspire everything to follow.
biBerk’s new brand persona:
The Nerd.
Passionate. Intelligent. Familiar. Energetic.
Never boring, always thinking ahead and very reliable, the Nerd is the person you trust because they have your back. And…they’ll do your homework for you.Dive deeper into the process with our phase 1 case study.
Phase 2: Brand identity.
6 months. 4 customer tests. And a brand new collaboration team.
With a solid strategic foundation in place, it was time for the really fun stuff: visuals! However, limitations with the website and some existing assets meant we couldn’t stray too far from the current brand. We presented two design concepts for the team to consider and tested both with a small set of their target audience.
The result:
A revised logo included a shift in capitalization for the brand name to appear friendly and clarify pronunciation. Plus, we designed a fully revamped visual suite of colors, primary and secondary graphic elements, photography style and more. The brand was launched internally with a rousing manifesto video that married the strategic foundation with the new look.
Read more about our quantitative approach to brand identity in the phase 2 case study.
Phase 3: Campaign execution.
2 new spokespeople. 188 digital spots. And a great big media test.
Internal excitement about the new brand was palpable, but an even greater challenge was upon us. We needed new ad campaigns that could continue selling the product while introducing the new positioning. And we needed a highly strategic digital media plan that could prove our hard work was worth it, without disrupting the existing buys.
The result:
In keeping with the insurance industry standard (and to lean into our Nerd persona) we enlisted two new characters, Berk and Berklyn, to be the voice of the brand. Our media team worked closely with our partners at Google and YouTube to identify a meaningful way to test and prove brand advertising’s ultimate effect on revenue.
Berk shows off his business insurance book smarts with a bottom-of-funnel message about saving money.
Berklyn connects with business owners of all kinds in a top-of-funnel message that incorporates biBerk’s most-insured industries.
See all the work in our phase 3 case study.
The journey continues.
Thanks to a collaborative and thorough process, the brand has created excitement and internal brand loyalty, while also achieving traction with audiences online.
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There’s more where this came from. Check out our other success stories for clients in a wide range of industries. Or, contact us to discuss how we can help your brand navigate today’s complex market.
