The Standard 
(aka Standard Insurance Company)

New:  Name treatment and flag symbol

Launched:   February 22, 2005, to outside audiences.
To an all-employee meeting, December 1 2004.
(See "LogoMan," a QuickTime movie made for this internal event. )
 

Story in brief:
"This is not about changing what we do or how we do it" says CEO Eric Parsons; "It's about bringing visibility to our strengths, and to our position as an industry leader" (with a range of employee benefit products). It was also about the decision to de-mutualize, thus facing a new audience (investors)... always a good reason for rethinking identity.  The HMH agency was retained in 2001 and started with brand research; thus rebranding was well under way when Eric Parsons assumed leadership and added his commitment in 2003.

Key research findings: the brand weaknesses were relatively technical: lack of clarity, low visibility, 'small' and 'yesterday.' "The Standard" was catching on, but the banner wasn't. The brand strengths, in contrast, were substantive, like "truly different in the sincerity of their passion for the individual insured."  (Agents said "the Standard" was different, for example, in that its loss adjusters would work directly with the insured employee, not through HR intermediaries).

The rebranding recommendation, in effect:  Go ahead, wave your flag. Be The Standard by which others are measured.

Credits:
C.E.O. -  Eric Parsons, Chairman, President and CEO
Identity design - The Portland (Oregon) office of HMH, a marcom agency;
Principal Ed Herinckx, Design Dir. Danielle Saxman, design Mark Conachan

First Impressions:
It works. Looks fresh, and proud. Direct, simple and to the point.  The old banner, in contrast, confused design with narrative (the little crowd of people under a cloudlike wing was meant to say "Wing of Providence.")

Is the flag solution original? No. But who cares? Herinckx says "We debated this but not heavily."  The flag is relevant literally (a flag is a 'standard'), as well as graphically effective and communicatively appropriate.  A distinguished colleague in corporate branding uses an amazingly similar lockup of blue flag to name (see CoreBrand). More to the point, a competitor with a synonymic name (Banner Life) uses a blue flag.  No one can own 'flag.' And as we've said before, clichés communicate; you just have to execute with good design.

Another small point: Normally I hate to see "The" in a name; one is never sure what the name is or how to file it or find it. "The Standard" is the exception, with two benefits. It communicates category (insurance, in which "The" is conventional; The Equitable, The Hartford).  More importantly it assures we won't read "standard" as normal, average, nothing special.