The Financial Services Rebranding Playbook - A step-by-step guide to reinvigorating your brand identity for professional and financial services firms

Sep 23, 2026

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The Financial Services Rebranding Playbook provides a structured, step-by-step approach for professional and financial services firms to reinvent brand identity. It explains why rebrands are difficult in these sectors and emphasizes internal adoption by employees and client-facing teams. The playbook covers defining a rebrand mission, conducting a brand audit, planning the rebrand, building communication and teams, creating the new identity, rolling it out, and measuring success through clear, measurable objectives.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages39

Reading Time14 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Defining your rebrand mission

Conducting your brand audit

Planning your rebrand

Creating your new brand identity

Rolling out your new brand

Measuring the success of your rebrand

Appendix

Conclusion

The Financial Services Rebranding Playbook A step-by-step guide toreinventing your brand identity for professional and financial services firms Introduction Rebrands require a mammoth effort. But for financial and professional services firms, they can be especially challenging. The success of these brands lies heavily in the hands of (non-marketing) employees-client-facing teams who create and share many of the most influential documents with clients and prospects (e.g. pitchbooks, proposals etc.) Therefore, in these sectors, the success of a rebrand is highly dependent on the internal adoption of the new brand; from ensuring teams can effectively communicate your mission and values, to helping them master new PowerPoint templates and assets. Making sure this happens consistently, across a complex, global landscape, is the ultimate test. In the last 10+ years, we’ve worked closely with many such firms to help them ensure the success of their rebrand, experiencing their challenges first-hand. We also went through our own rebrand in 2020-which we executed entirely in-house. For this eBook, we’ve collated all of this knowledge, as well as insights from some of our clients who have recently navigated their own rebranding projects: UniCredit, Mazars, Singer Capital Markets, Apax Partners, and Forensic Risk Alliance. Of course, there is no one set way to do a rebrand; the process will inevitably be unique to each business. Content 1: Defining your rebrand mission ~~ ~~ 2: Conducting your brand audit ~~ ~~ 3: Planning your rebrand ~~ ~~ Developing your communication strategy ~~ ~~Building your winning team ~~ ~~Getting organized ~~ ~~ 4: Creating your new brand identity Defining your vision, mission and brand values ~~ ~~Changing the name of your brand ~~ ~~Updating your core visual identity ~~ ~~Establishing your brand voice ~~ ~~Updating your marketing materials ~~ ~~ 05 09 11 19 25 29 31 33 37 39 47 50 5: Rolling out your new brand ~~ ~~ 53 Ensuring internal adoption ~~ ~~ 54 Planning your external launch ~~ ~~ 65 6: Measuring the success of ~~ ~~ 69 your rebrand Appendix ~~ ~~ 73 Conclusion ~~ ~~ 75 Thank you ~~ ~~ 75 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | Part 1 Defining your rebrand mission 5 Before you begin doing anything, you need to make sure you have a clear understanding of why you’re doing this rebrand, what you want to achieve and when you want to achieve it by. Along with your core team, consider the following carefully: Why are you rebranding? Make sure your core team are sure about exactly why you’reinvesting in this project. It could be to modernize, to align with your new growth strategy, or as a result of a merger. There could be more than one reason but try to keep it simple to make sure you’re focused on one clear goal. Ensure the motive behind why you’re rebranding aligns with, and supports, your company’s broader strategic objectives and that you can communicate that simply and effectively. Explaining clearly how the new brand will support the business’s wider goals, and setting clear objectives that demonstrate tangible benefits, will help you secure internal buy-in. It’s the key to taking the rebrand from a‘nice to have’ to a ‘must have’ project. 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | How will you measure success?
Decide what you want the impact of the rebrand to be – for example, it might be increased brand awareness in a specific region, or better brand consistency across multiple global offices.
Outline realistic, measurable objectives. For example, this could be an increase in organic traffic to your website, improved perception of your brand (according to a focus group), or more clarity and consistency internally on what your mission and values are following a merger. Be clear on exactly how you’re going to measure success and when.

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FAQs

Why is internal adoption critical for a financial services rebrand?

The playbook states that success depends heavily on non-marketing, client-facing employees who create and share influential documents. Consistent internal adoption helps teams communicate the mission and values and use new PowerPoint templates and assets effectively.

What should you define at the start of a rebrand mission?

It advises clarifying why the organization is rebranding, what the firm wants to achieve, and the timeline. It also recommends aligning motives with broader strategic objectives and setting objectives that show tangible benefits.

How do you measure whether the rebrand succeeded?

The document recommends deciding the intended impact and outlining realistic, measurable objectives. Examples include increased brand awareness, improved brand consistency across global offices, growth in organic website traffic, and improved perception from focus groups.

Sep 23, 2026

Upload by Ezra