Following a full rebrand of broker-facing mortgage lender Freedom Lending, to Wave, following acquisition by Merrill Lynch, an integrated launch campaign was required to generate awareness of the change.
The campaign involved a ‘teaser’ phase, prior to the launch activity, with the objective of generating curiosity amongst the broker audience. At the heart of the Lending name. As a result, viewers were unaware that they were actually looking at a significant portion of the new logo prior to its actual reveal. The image was supported by the date on which the brand name switch-over would take place.
The fully integrated campaign comprised press advertising, direct mail, e-mail, online and media relations activities. During the teaser phase key intermediaries were sent an invitation to a private reveal of the new name and brand identity. Subsequently, on the day of the reveal, they received a portable DVD player and short film of the company’s Chief Executive announcing the new brand name.
The results of the rebrand and launch campaign were extremely positive. 3 weeks following the launch of the new brand identity, research was undertaken by NMG to measure awareness amongst brokers of the new Wave branding, with excellent results. The research reported that:
”6 in 10 respondents spontaneously claimed to know the new name for Freedom Lending; quite remarkably all of these correctly identified this as ‘Wave’”. In addition, website hits rose by 370% in the 3 months following the brand launch and new broker registrations showed a 165% increase over the same period in the previous year.
The work was commended in the ‘Best Integrated B2B Campaign’ category at the Financial Services Forum Awards for marketing effectiveness.