What it takes to manage a global brand.
RUSSELL INVESTMENTS
HIGHLY REGULATED, DOLLAR-DRIVEN, ANALYTICAL, NUMBER-CRUNCHERS NEED HELP.
When you work with the brainiacs of the investment industry, it becomes obvious that an artistic, communications-focused creative professional can be vital in helping to infuse a sense of humanity into their brand. Over the last twenty years, people from the ROTATOR team have helped to reinforce that noble cause of “improving financial security for people.” But creating that optimistic, confident and consistent narrative takes a team of designers that understand the rigors of the technology, the complexity of systems and the need to convey complex ideas in a voice that is clear and concise. This means that we need to be able to help distill these complex investment ideas into elegant infographics and digital executions that define a clear path to understanding for the various audiences Russell serves.
VIEW OUR CAPABILITIES REEL FOR RUSSELL
HIGH NET WORTH DEMANDS HIGH DESIGN.
When your audience has millions and millions in liquid assets, the printed pieces that represent your service offerings must convey the quality in which the client is investing. A strong brand is consistent and well-crafted from every vantage point. Being sensitive to the nuances of the demographic to which you are speaking is a key component to creating effective design solutions. The combination of brand/identity, messaging voice, information graphics and photography or illustration choices all need to work in harmony to effectively communicate with your intended audience.
WE HELPED SHAPE THE DIGITAL LANDSCAPE FOR RUSSELL, AROUND THE WORLD.
We crafted a range of solutions from the main corporate site, to extranets, microsites, ad landing pages, apps, social networks, animated digital ads and video storytelling deliverables. We guided decisions being made around the world for internal and external client facing projects whether they were onscreen at events, in the office or public facing environments. How do you manage something so large when you are spread so thin? Our answer was to constantly refine and improve our solutions, processes and style guides through focused collaboration with business stakeholders, IT and our team to help guide UX and visual design regardless if it showed up in Australia or the Netherlands.
Now that doesn’t mean everything was perfect, all of the time — because we are all humans and part of our nature as passionate creators, or the demands of business constraints, sometimes get in the way of consistency. Knowing the balance between a strong brand thread and leaving room for innovation, and expansion into areas that could be the next great thing, is part of the journey.
AN INTERACTIVE PRESENCE THAT PROVIDES INSIGHT ON MANY LEVELS.
It’s a good thing digital work models include an iterative process. Our team members were spread out across the globe and coordinating across timezones, as well as managing the varied cultural differences. This always proves to be challenging. Some projects allow for a longer timeline while others need to hit a fast and hard deadline. Knowing how to phase-in key requirements at various stages can mean the difference between success and failure.
From a brand perspective, our goal was to maintain consistency in voice and visual executions, as well as providing our users with intuitive UX implementations. With as many different client types as you could imagine, we made sure our solutions could be leveraged for more than one occasion. With a nimble global team, you need to be able to utilize flexibility and responsiveness, otherwise our digital experiences could be reduced by as much as half-as-many deployments. Time to market is a key necessity in today’s fast-paced business environment, where you cannot miss even one opportunity.
A common conversation at Russell will always include a sentence or two where someone is explaining why their group is different and therefore they need a completely different solution. Although this statement has merit, we found a way to make sure the brand system had a common thread through each group and when you put the pieces and parts together, from around the world, you can see that critical connection and consistency.
WE HAVE SO MUCH WORK WE COULD SHOW, IT’S EMBARRASSING, BUT YOU GET THE IDEA.
LIVE EVENTS
From large annual events focusing on forty-five-foot-wide, 3:1 ratio full media intense main-stage presentations to smaller local city venues — once again — we made sure we designed, built and delivered solutions that could be leveraged at more than one event and in locations around the world. Russell Investments annual events were as big as they get, but when any of our other smaller teams had an event, that required something less grandiose, we made sure the attendees would never feel like they were getting a downgrade in quality or sophistication.
The larger annual events allowed for longer planning cycles, but also gave us the tools we needed to leverage smaller, quick-turn, local events. The assets we delivered from print, to digital, to an after-party immersive experiences, all had the same energizing impact.
MOTION GRAPHICS
A narrative that is reinforced using the power of motion graphics becomes exponentially more effective. ROTATOR has a deep knowledge of the technology behind the creation of motion graphics. Whether the need is to create simple elegant animations and dynamic infographics, or if the solution requires combining video or other photographic imagery in combination with text and visual elements, we can deliver the final content that the project requires. Great storytelling takes advantage of all the tools available to create a seamless flow of information and messaging. Motion graphics can be a significant tool to leverage for many projects.
SOCIAL MEDIA
In many ways, the social channels gave us the opportunity to explore more cutting-edge executions. This is important when you are a company that people usually think is a bit stuffy. From documentary type videos focusing on dry subject matter such as the truth about index accuracy, that took a lighthearted look at the myths behind Bigfoot, UFOs and the Loch Ness monster (A.K.A. Nessie), to engaging friendly illustrative storytelling and infographics. The deliverables on these platforms also gave us a direct reading of our ROI, but the interesting and complex part was understanding and tracking who was viewing these assets and whether they were part of our core audience or an outlier.
Just because you manage to get a social hit doesn’t mean you have struck a chord with your target audience.