United Benefit Advisors (UBA)

Announcing a New Narrative with Fresh Perspectives

A brand reimagining debuted with an animation that explains how far UBA has come as a business and what to expect in the future.

Brand Identity & Storytelling Animation – Created in Association with Mess

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Workshop Participation

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Storytelling Strategy

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Storyboarding

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Animation

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Brand Collateral

✨ Workshop Participation 📚 Storytelling Strategy 🎞 Storyboarding 💥 Animation 🎨 Brand Collateral

Brief

Goal

Since its founding in 2002, with 15 Charter Partner Firms, UBA has grown significantly from its humble beginnings. With 20+ years of dedicated service to the benefits industry and long-standing recognition as one of the nation's top employee benefits organizations, UBA is proud to be among the country's largest privately held employee benefits brokerage groups. UBA is seeking to expand our message to the next generation of benefit advisors while still catering to our current members.

The new brand should evoke:

UBA’s established presence in the field
UBA’s passion for their partners, clients, and customers
UBA’s message in simplicity

Analysis

Together, let’s translate UBA’s message to reach a broader audience in the right tone 📣

Workshop & Ideation Exercises
To gain a deeper understanding from everyone at the table, we conduct exercises aimed towards the project goals

With the guidance of our friends at Well Turned Words, we conducted a workshop with UBA to identify where they are now and where they want to go. Well Turned Words led the tonal and copywriting portion, while we focused on the visuals.

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Moodboards

A selection of imagery formed into sets of moods. Clients are asked to give a quick reaction to the general mood, then we dive into the details on each board – focusing on likes and dislikes with rationale.

Brand Deck Exercise

A deck of contrasting terms focused on describing your brand. Clients are asked to sort terms for: who they are, who they aren’t, does not apply, and torn.

New Points of Interest
Post-workshop, we can identify new insights to translate to the project

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UBA is there for their partners at every step of the way. Whether it’s to provide documents, engage advisors on continued education, or collaborate at on-site leadership conferences… UBA has got your back.

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Wise, Modern, Progressive, Bold, Refined, Simple, Approachable, Trusted, Accomplished, Relatable, Dependable, Playful, Effortless, Curious

Content & Brand Strategy

Thoughtful Tone, Minimal Design

Visualizing Voice

Crafting a brand that spans a wide age and demographic range, we leaned on cleanliness and clarity above all else. The minimal design aesthetic gives us nowhere to hide, but it lets the intricacy of the details drive the tone of the brand. Sharp angles combined with perfect circles represent the duality of UBA to give a sincere and welcoming emphasis – the same process behind the font pairings. Plus the final kiss of saturated blues nods to UBA’s industry in finance and security but new and improved with that youthful vibrance.

Represent the Trinity

Brand Uniqueness

UBA came to us with the awareness that they were not speaking to their audience effectively. With the new strategy of aiming at their three audiences – their partners, the people they serve, and their internal team – we consciously ran with the concept of 3 being the primary visual for the identity rebrand.

Brand & Animation Design

Scalability & Application

Brand Usage

As a financial company, paperwork and printed materials are key players for the brand strategy – plus considerations for our special case of the quarterly conferences UBA puts on. We systemized layouts to a square grid with opportunities for play via the extended suite of patterns and a secondary color palette. Making it easy for their internal design team to identify the placement of elements on an array of materials. For those extra special moments, geometric illustrations are available to add to the mix.

Say it Loud, Say it Proud

Animation Showcase

The rebranding experience is exciting, so when UBA asked us how to debut the announcement we thought a social post or email wouldn’t cut it. Working together with UBA and Well Turned Words, we crafted a script for a kinetic typography animation. The adjustments to UBA’s messaging tone are the real driving force, and showcasing it in motion would make it easier for the audience to get on board. We kept the animation elements simple yet supportive, leaving the main focus on the words themselves.