Leaders on Brand .07
There are many different ways that leaders value brand strategy. Through the work we’ve done with leaders at companies of all types and sizes, across all kinds of industries, we’ve been particularly inspired by those who view brand strategy as part of their overall outlook on business. So inspired, in fact, that we decided to sit down with some of them to talk about how they see this sometimes elusive notion of brand and how, in their view, it informs their approach to business.
Chapter seven of our Leaders on Brand discussions includes David Blumenstein, Tami Simon and Rick Hiss of Segal, an international employee benefits and HR consulting firm founded in 1939.
David Blumenstein is president and chief executive officer at Segal. He’s responsible for developing and executing both short- and long-term strategies for every aspect of the business. Just a few of his many fields of expertise include collaborating with and creating solutions for clients of all shapes and sizes.
Tami Simon is a senior vice president and Segal’s global consulting business leader. She has more than 25 years of HR and employee benefits expertise working with various employers from the Fortune 100 to the mid-market. She is a respected thought leader and has developed and executed Segal’s corporate growth strategy.
Rick Hiss is also one of Segal’s senior vice presidents and their chief marketing officer as well. With more than 30 years of industry experience, Rick specializes in planning and executing strategic marketing, and communications and business development campaigns.
Readers note: Prior to this conversation, Simple Truth and Segal worked together to unify the Segal brand architecture — which included multiple sub-brands after years of acquisition — and create a cohesive Segal story. Check out the case study.
Thank you so much for joining us today. To kick off the conversation, how would each of you define brand, in your own terms?
DAVID: Both internally and externally, I believe brand is the feeling people get when they think and talk about the work of an organization.
RICK: It’s also all the other little things that go into why people feel the way they do. I see our own brand as a culmination of our organization. Our people. Our voice. Our image. How we embody our mission. It all makes our brand what it is.
TAMI: At the end of the day, brand is identity. Our branding initiative with Simple Truth accomplished two vital goals: One, it was a unifying force for our company internally. And two, it helped us reestablish Segal as an industry leader to both current and potential customers.
Tami, that tees up the next area of discussion perfectly.
You underwent a comprehensive brand evolution with us. A key focus of the project was how to approach the Segal family of brands. Talk about your organization’s decision to move toward a unified one Segal brand architecture.
TAMI: I believe that Segal’s whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Consulting is a team sport — and I have the privilege of working with industry-leading experts across all HR domains servicing multiple industries. That’s what makes our organization so great. Unifying our brand architecture allowed us to leverage that tremendous expertise and intellectual capital to best serve all our clients.
DAVID: As a result of multiple strategic acquisitions, Segal did not have a common identity. We used to be called “The Segal Group,” but by definition, that meant we had a lot of different parts — and that’s not how we wanted to feel or be seen. We continuously said: “We are One Company,” and that we all have to work together. With the decision to move toward a one Segal brand architecture, we set out to make sure everyone understood that we really are one.
Did anything worry you about transitioning to this one Segal approach?
DAVID: We had received a lot of feedback over time that this approach wouldn’t work and that it would cost us clients. In fact, it was the opposite! I had clients reach out and say: “Wow, this is great. I’m really glad you did this. Why did it take so long?”
RICK: Here are two more quotes from clients we served under one of the brands that we phased out. “We’re surprised you did not do this sooner!” “I agree it will help eliminate confusion, and I like the clarity and simplicity of the new logo.” So, in reality, we were more gun-shy than our clients were — they were already thinking that way.
You also came out of this process with a unified brand platform and a new outward expression. What are a few key things you took away from the process?
TAMI: In many ways, the internal messaging portion of the brand platform was more challenging than the external messaging of the expression. Some employees were attached to their prior identities within the organization. We needed to transparently communicate why we were modernizing and unifying our brand to get everybody on-board.
RICK: Presenting a consistent face was one of our goals. And the unified brand platform and expression helped us achieve it. They made us more consistent and efficient, and brought all of Segal together across very different industry verticals, geographies and businesses.
DAVID: For a firm like ours that is a little change averse, I didn’t want to oversell it — I wanted it to feel natural. So, instead of calling it a brand transformation, I called it a refresh. That seemed to resonate with our people.
Gaining buy-in and consensus can be a challenge for many organizations, especially in endeavors like this. How did you approach getting your employees on board?
DAVID: We were very transparent and got them engaged throughout the process. Companywide, we explained what we were doing and why we were doing it. Along the way, we’d ask for feedback and include people in various conversations.
How about on the marketing side, Rick?
RICK: We talked about it as a business decision, not solely a marketing decision. We elevated the conversation beyond a new logo and colors and grounded it with strong, measurable goals. In fact, throughout all our internal meetings with our Board, business leaders and employees, we started every conversation with the business goals we were seeking to achieve.
TAMI: Let me add to what Rick just said because it can’t be underscored enough. There was a healthy amount of skepticism from people who had lived through other branding efforts that said things like, “This better not be spending money on a new hue of blue. It needs to be meaningful to the business.” Delivering on that was vital, and it took deliberate planning coupled with an organic process. By operating the way we did, it ensured everyone could own the brand and understand their contribution to the success of the business.
At Simple Truth, we have a methodology of identifying and harnessing cross-category insights to grow our clients’ businesses. We call it ecosystems thinking. One aspect of this is connecting with both industry-level and higher-level cultural trends to give brands deeper relevance.
In our work with you, broader trends around empathy, empowerment and people wanting more of a role in their own health and financial outcomes informed our decision to humanize your brand. Can you talk about the importance of connecting Segal to a higher-level value like that?
DAVID: We’re a small drop in a big ocean, but that drop is still made of water. I think that a perspective like this gives us some lift. It’s subtle, but it’s powerful. By connecting our brand to larger cultural trends, we’re able to have our message resonate with a larger range of people.
TAMI: I challenge you to pick up a newspaper or online news source and not see a topic that somehow relates to the advice we provide our clients — healthcare, retirement savings, worker safety, diversity, leadership, job engagement, asset growth, insurance. All of these topics focus on one thing: People. We are in one of the most exciting and quickly evolving advisory service industries. Great consultants earn their client’s loyalty and trust by adding value and helping them successfully navigate today’s most extreme challenges with unwavering integrity and objectivity. That’s why your approach resonated so intuitively with me. Because it isn’t an effort, it’s authentic.
Before we go, any final thoughts? Rick, we’ll start with you.
RICK: The overall reaction to this work has been extremely positive. Our internal design team not only worked with the brand platform and expression, but they also applied it across all our work. While it’s a structured framework, it’s also flexible, which has given us the creative freedom to really bring it to life. I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s rolled out into the market so seamlessly.
DAVID: To organizations considering this work, you have to pick the right partner. And we absolutely made the right choice in picking Simple Truth. The best testimonial for this is the feedback we got from the market. “This is great, really makes sense.” “Glad you did this, less confusing.” To me, that meant our disorganization was being felt, and what we’re doing now is making a positive impact. You can’t underestimate the clarity an exercise like this can create both internally and externally.
TAMI: I agree, you guys were great partners. You know how to get to the right answer by asking the right questions — that makes you great consultants, too. But I’ll end with this: Despite the pandemic, which started less than two months after we launched our refreshed brand, we had incredible sales in 2020. We successfully showed clients and prospects our value during one of the most difficult periods of modern history. If that doesn’t speak to how well we’re able to own our simple truth in the market, I don’t know what does.
Dive into our previous Leaders on Brand discussions below.
Three senior leaders from the global real estate investment management firm Heitman
Board of directors professional and business-marketing consultant
VP of Marketing and Communications at the residential real estate company Baird & Warner
President and CEO of the century-old membership organization HR Source
Two senior leaders from the healthcare marketing company InStep Health
CEO and CMO of the nationwide nonprofit leader National Safety Council
Stay tuned for more discussions in this series. Need fresh, strategic thinking for your business?