Accuserve was a merger of three companies that came together to offer comprehensive interior and exterior repair and claims managed repair service. The company offers a full-service concierge-style offering for property owners, contractors, and insurance carriers, three very distinct audiences. Accuserve leaned on Notable through the merging of three existing brands, relying on our team to build a cohesive brand, develop strong messages to speak to their customers, and create an arsenal of collateral.
Sector: Professional Services | Subtype: Insurance Claims
Merging three distinct brands is a nuanced and potentially fraught process, one that demands sensitivity and empathy as three teams place their hopes in one company to help them navigate the challenges. In this case, each brand had a strong employee and customer base to consider, and it was critical to get not just the teams - but the existing customers - confident and enthusiastic about the new entity being built.
The fundamental through line in this merger was that all three companies shared similar values, and it was important for those to be showcased in the new brand. In a merger like this, it was also crucial to preserve the existing entities to some degree, to ensure it did not appear as if one brand was absorbing another, both for personnel morale and for client continuity. All parties involved needed to see the shift as something to inspire confidence and excitement.
The clear insight that came out of initial meetings with the teams from the three merging companies was that the whole really was more than the sum of its parts in this case. The teams, the technology, and the services that this merger would allow Accuserve to offer an industry-defining set of services that would set them apart. The challenge would be to bring the teams along in development of the new brand to ensure the buy in and support that would make all the difference at launch.
The teams positioned people and service as their clear differentiators. The markets they served were flooded with companies talking about dollars and ROI - the established language of the insurance claims industry. But Accuserve’s ethics and language were all about the people at the heart of the claims process, and the goal to make this process personal and frictionless for the parties involved, even when in much of the industry, these parties had competing interests.
A new brand was built around accuracy, precision, and service: Accuserve. From the logo to the site, the three initial services were seamlessly integrated, and Accuserve became a platform company, serving three different audiences in a clear and defined way. The rebrand gave Accuserve a new site and sales materials to facilitate the official launch, and the integrated back end properties incoporated into the rebrand ensured the training portal and contractor maintained functionality.
The new brand incorporated all the digital tools needed for the career portal and training program, both imparting the clear messaging of the new brand. Clear messaging guidelines, offered the management team a unified language to speak about the new brand, and we packaged a set of useful visual assets that brand managers could employ to create new collateral and web resources as needed. The rebrand created unity across three brands, and established alignment among executives and team members.
Brand exploration began with detailed briefings about the business units being combined, discussing with each team which aspects of their existing brands needed to be emphasized as a new brand was created. Workshops and empathetic guided discussions with stakeholders helped the branding team understand the nuances of the business and also aligned the in-house teams around a common set of goals for the new entity.
Accuserve’s new materials brought an approachable and modern feel to the claims management industry, which often is pegged as old-fashioned or beaurocratic. Because people and diversity were stated as important drivers to all the teams involved, these were incorporated into the materials and site design as well.
Multiple iterations of logo work were presented, involving all the stakeholders to gain consensus at each step. In the end, the new logo was developed in a way that it could be applied across a multitude of use cases and against many backgrounds. The use of a house represented clearly the business and focus on property and people, while the subtle shape of the arrow pointing upwards connoted improvement or progress.
The team created a trust-inspiring logo using a color that was familiar to the industry - blue, which represents security, and shades of yellow, representing innovation and technology. The fonts selected were purposely strong, yet approachable, reinforcing the message the brand team wanted to convey.
Custom icongraphy was critical because Accuserve’s offerings included a technology platform, so custom icons created a sense of continuity between the product and the marketing site. Because so much of what Accuserve does is process-based, a set of icons that depict and represent the spectrum of services helped inform and educate audiences.
Throughout the site and materials, Accuserve’s new image treatment put the focus on the individual. People are at the heart of their business, both internally and on the customer side, so we used imagery where the people are “cut out” of their environments, bringing the backgrounds down to create a visual hierarchy of scale that shows people are the focal point. This visual theme guided the site aesthetic, offering continuity between the three audiences Accuserve touched.
All three service areas were represented across the new site and materials, unified by the clear focus on people, the distinct brand colors, and the process-driven explanation of services that are often seen as complex or confusing.
