Unum

More reality, same personality

Unum provide employee benefits that protect businesses and their staff, working with almost 1.4 million people in the UK and 37 of the top FTSE 100 companies.

They were undertaking a refresh of their visual identity (VI) as they understood the need to strengthen and manage customers’ perception of the brand, and how a company’s visual identity has the power to influence their audience’s psychological state of mind and perception of the business.

A key component of their VI, used in all communications has been ‘human figures and buildings’. However, the old illustration style was perceived to be a little too simplistic and didn’t allow them to illustrate real-life situations in the manner their communications required. We were asked to help develop this side of the new Unum VI.

The answer

We developed a more realistic, yet still illustrative style, more mature, warmer and engaging. The new style allowed illustrations to help tell each Unum product’s story, to identify every scenario where Unum’s services could be called upon, whilst communicating the benefits of these, to employees and employers.

The key to the successful new VI, was finding a style that allowed us to communicate more clearly the emotion associated with the employer/employee need, and the positive outcome. Meaning Unum were able to connect with their audiences through everything they say, as well as through visual storytelling.

By bringing in the real world, as well as real people, this enabled us to reinforce Unum’s position of understanding their customer’s needs whilst making it easier to communicate often complex products in a simple and engaging manner.

The outcome

The new VI has been received well by existing and new customers, direct and indirect, by brokers and across the entire Unum UK business.

Audiences find the new style more empathetic, more engaging, simpler to understand. Whilst Unum have a VI that clearly differentiates them from the competition, whilst staying true to who they are and how they operate.