Why Phoenix Group is ‘pushing the boat out’ with Standard Life rebrand

Phoenix Group is on a mission to create “much more clarity” for consumers with its rebrand to Standard Life, as the financial services group looks to become “match-fit for the future”.

Earlier this week, the business announced that it will rebrand to Standard Life in March next year to focus attention on its “most trusted brand”. Phoenix Group bought Standard Life in May 2021 after its acquisition of Standard Life Assurance Limited from Aberdeen Group in 2018.

Phoenix Group brand and marketing director, Ben Rhodes, says bringing Standard Life to the forefront is “more than just a brand refresh”. It is, he explains, a “strategic signal” to the market this is an “organically growing business” that’s trying to win, keep and grow customers at a time when long-term savings present a “real challenge” for many in the UK.

“Only one in 10 people actually get financial advice around what to do for their retirement planning. And as one of the largest players in the sector, we think it’s really important that we lean in and we support that,” says Rhodes.

“Having a strong brand like Standard Life, as opposed to a portfolio of smaller brands, actually will really help support customers make the right decisions as they journey into retirement.”

We need to project ourselves as being a lot more modern and that can come out in our visual identity, the way we communicate, the formats we use.

Ben Rhodes, Phoenix Group

The marketer claims that it “wasn’t the right time” to rename the group to Standard Life in 2021 as Phoenix was still working out what it wanted to achieve overall.

Since then the business has been “through a massive period of transformation” via a purpose-led pivot Rhodes joined in 2021. Two years later, on the launch of the group’s first consumer-facing corporate campaign in 2023, Rhodes set out the ambition to build consumer trust and help the firm become “the Unilever of its category”.

The “huge progress” it has made since means it “makes much more sense” to push everything under one brand now, he explains. Currently, the business supports 12 million customers in managing over £295bn in assets.

“Over the last four years, we’ve been really moving towards what we call an open business, a customer focused, organically growing business,” says Rhodes.

Part of the change will see the group move away from a masterbrand strategy with endorsed customer brands and towards a branded house strategy, with Standard Life as the masterbrand.

The group looks at its brand strategy “every couple of years” to make sure it “visualises what the enterprise is trying to do”. Through analysis, Rhodes believes the shift to become a branded house will make it “a lot easier to manage and maximise” outcomes the business is looking to achieve.

Phoenix Group to rebrand as Standard Life to create ‘consistent brand image’

Heading into the brand architecture change, marketing’s goals are to “elevate” Standard Life as a corporate, consumer and employer brand, creating a “really big platform for growth”.

“Internally, it’s one brand and one culture in a way that will be really unifying for the business,” says Rhodes.

Overall, Phoenix’s ambition is to be “the UK’s leading retirement savings and income business” and it only sees benefits from aligning under one brand.

As the change in strategy gets underway, the Standard Life identity will be “revitalised”, as the team looks to drive organic growth across different audiences and capitalise on perceptions of the brand as “secure, trusted and reliable”.

The logo, core colours and typeface won’t change as they hold a “strong connection” to the company’s past. It will be a task of “augmentation” to be more “distinctive”.

“We need to project ourselves as being a lot more modern and that can come out in our visual identity, the way we communicate, the formats we use,” says Rhodes.

“One of the things we’re good at, but we don’t champion as much, is the friendly and approachable nature of engaging with our brand. We will develop a visual identity that builds on all of the core assets that we’ve got, but we’ll build in some new distinctive elements that will make us feel clearly Standard Life.”

‘Pushing the boat out’

Rhodes intends to experiment with digital marketing, in particular to spark conversations about financial wellness in “fresh and vibrant” ways.

“If we want to feel that we’re quite a modern company, then we do need to be doing modern things. You can’t just rely on the ways that things have always happened in the past. So, pushing the boat out slightly in the way that we want to engage with customers, we’ll definitely be looking at how we use our channels,” he explains.

Marketing will also move away from being “product-centric”.

“[We want to] meet with customers where they are opposed from where we [the financial services industry] are on the other side of the road waving at them,” Rhodes states.

Talking about the issues, challenges and possible solutions will be the route to success, he adds.

If we want to feel that we’re quite a modern company, then we do need to be doing modern things.

Ben Rhodes, Phoenix Group

Effectiveness of the change in brand architecture will be measured through the group’s pre-existing brand strength measure around corporate reputation, looking at how it is appealing to all of the company’s desired audiences.

“We’ve got very clear business ambitions to be in the top three in our workplace market, five in our retirement solutions market. The brand is a huge enabler of that. We’re aligning our ambition to the market share ambitions that we’re also having,” says Rhodes.

Trading volumes will also be measured over the next few years to understand the connection between improving brand strength and changing customer behaviours, whether that’s through acquisition or retention. Effectiveness measures will become an “important” indicator of success.

Although Standard Life will be the overarching brand, the “proximity” other brands within the group – SunLife, Phoenix Life, ReAssure and Phoenix CIS – will have with Standard Life is being discussed, particularly as they all operate within different markets. They won’t all be rebranded.

“We’ll always take quite a pragmatic view on if being closer to Standard Life PLC is beneficial,” says Rhodes.

He adds that any new customers will only be “grown through the Standard Life brand”.