Kemper
Launch
Visual Systems
Identity
Video
Leveraging a newly acquired brand name
to drive greater value
Unitrin is a diversified insurance holding company that provides automobile, homeowners, life, and health insurance to individuals and small businesses through several subsidiaries. Over the past several years the company had transformed itself from a diversified financial services holding company to a more focused insurance company.
Lippincott worked on signaling Unitrin’s new position in the marketplace with a new corporate name, Kemper, and a new brand strategy and identity to be applied across the full portfolio of its insurance businesses.
Challenges
In 2010 Unitrin acquired the rights to the Kemper brand name. Upon completing the purchase, management had several questions regarding its future brand strategy:
Where and how the Kemper name can be leveraged more broadly to drive value for Unitrin?
Do we need to invest in the brand or can we realize value immediately?
Is there an overarching brand strategy that can cut across the full diversity of Unitrin’s insurance businesses, business models and customer segments?
What is the brand architecture and presentation that best balances efficiency with specialization and focus in particular segments, channels and offerings?
How can we bring the brand to life externally through the customer experience?
How do we engage employees in the launch of the new Kemper brand and inspire brand-aligned behavior?
Actions
Assessed current brand image for Unitrin, Kemper, and other brands in the portfolio based on feedback from customers, agents, executives, and investors
Identified opportunities for competitive differentiation and learnings from successful out-of-category examples
Created an overarching corporate brand positioning
Recommended how the Kemper name should be leveraged more broadly
Developed a brand architecture that organized Kemper’s brands and articulates a clear role for each brand within the portfolio that included:
Brand architecture organizing principles and endorsement strategy
Product/service hierarchy, relationships and positioning implications
General criteria for determining the naming approach for new products and services
A perspective on the use of more evocative, proprietary product/service names vs. standard descriptors
Implications for legal names as well as other online portals
High-level brand architecture transition plan
Developed a new visual identity and overarching design system utilized by all companies in the portfolio
Developed new collateral and marketing communications
Partnered with external agencies to launch new websites
Results
In August 2011 Unitrin rebranded as Kemper and launched the new brand to all audiences. This new name, strategy and identity represent the tangible and visual qualities that bind the businesses together and structure how Kemper communicates its benefits, from helping agents grow their business to protecting customers and their most valuable possessions. Today Kemper represents a broad set of insurance businesses unified under one strong brand and with one set of core principles.