CorpComms Magazine

On the very day that the management buyout of Cox Insurance Holdings was completed in June 2005, chief executive Neil Utley announced a change in the company name to Equity Insurance Group.

His announcement followed an audit that revealed the group owned more than 15 different brands and three trading names - Bennetts UK, Insure-Shop and JMW Insurance Brokers. Utley claims Cox had been disadvantaged by too many brand names with insufficient brand recognition. The new name, which also capitalised on the group's well-known underwriting business Equity Red Star, signifies fairness and balance. A new name deserves a new look, and Equity Insurance swiftly hired London-based Soukias Jones Design to create a new logo, which is being rolled out this month to 70 branches across the UK and Northern Ireland.

In order to save on costs, Equity has handled all marketing and public relations in-house.

'In the old days, we had so many different brands that it was causing confusion and stretching our marketing budget,' says Laurence Smith, head of brand marketing at Equity. 'We wanted to consolidate the brands in order to create much greater awareness of our business. We also wanted our staff to feel they were working for one team.'

Soukias Jones came up with a new logo - symbolizing modernity and freshness - in three different colours. The red logo is for Equity Red Star, one of the country's leading motoring underwriters; the blue is for the insurance brokerage business; and the two are combined in the purple logo, which represents the group as a whole. All signage outside branches will be blue. 'The little symbol on the logo is meant to pick up on the spelling and meaning of equity, symbolising fairness,' adds Smith.

Grahame Jones, director of Soukias Jones, notes that the identity is quite bold and graphically led. 'The traditional viewof insurance is changing. Not all brands are staid and traditional; there are some big players out there. We had to create a single identity that would allow Equity to compete in this marketplace.' According to Mike Hutton, managing director of Equity's branch network, 'Presenting a united brand to both our personal lines and commercial clients will reinforce the group's position as one of the fastest-growing brokerages in the country and as a key player in the motor and home insurance market. It will also deliver the clear message that a single brand provides our customers with a wide range of competitive products through our panel of leading insurers.'

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