After three decades, one of the world’s largest asset managers has refreshed its identity. State Street’s asset management arm has retired the long-standing Global Advisors name and reintroduced itself as State Street Investment Management.
However, the firm’s chief marketing officer John Brockelman says the rebrand marks more than just a name change. It signals a strategic shift in how the firm wants to connect with clients, investors and the wider market.
In an interview with Financial Promoter, he highlights how the rebrand aims to clarify the firm’s value proposition and better reflect its evolving client base.
The decision to rebrand now
After more than 30 years’ operating as State Street Global Advisors, Brockelman says the decision to rebrand now aligns with the firm’s expansion and diversification of its client base.
He notes that the asset management division of State Street was founded in 1978 and later spun out as State Street Global Advisors in 1990, at a time when the firm was heavily focused on institutional clients.
However, fast forward to today, the firm has significantly expanded its global footprint and entered new markets, which has resulted in a dramatic shift in the types of clients it now serves, he says.
While institutional clients remain a core part of the business, he notes that the growth of ETFs has propelled the firm into serving hundreds of thousands of intermediaries and financial advisers worldwide. Increasingly, retail investors are also buying State Street’s ETFs directly through online brokerage accounts.
Brockelman acknowledges that despite this broader client base, the firm hasn’t actively marketed to these newer audiences in a direct way.
“We were mostly marketing to institutional investors and intermediaries, so for us, this has essentially been an evolution,” he says.
What the rebrand set out to achieve
After determining that now was the ideal time to rebrand, Brockelman explains the initiative was driven by three key goals, the first being to sharpen the firm’s value proposition.
“We really wanted to define what the company stood for and the lane that we wanted to own in the investment management business,” he says.
The firm’s value proposition was identified through extensive quantitative and qualitative research conducted by State Street Investment Management with clients and employees, which set out to understand what sets State Street apart and what lies at the core of its investment management business, according to Brockelman.
From this, the firm determined its role is to act as an essential partner to clients, which helps them get where they want to go.
“Whether that’s an institutional investor trying to help save for pensions, or a financial advisor trying to help their clients prepare for a number of life moments, or someone coming to us to buy our products through an online brokerage, we help them get where they want to go,” he notes.
The positioning of State Street Investment Management as an essential partner builds on the launch of the “Getting There Starts Here” campaign, which debuted last autumn.
The campaign aimed to show that every client, whether a direct retail investor or financial adviser, has their own hopes, dreams and aspirations, and that State Street Investment Management exists to help them reach their goals.
“We wanted to make sure that the campaign wasn’t just speaking to one audience in particular and resonated with institutional as well as intermediary investors,” he says.
It brought this message to life through stories of people turning their dreams into reality, such as a home renter becoming a homeowner, a family’s sous chef becoming a head chef of a restaurant and a student progressing from grade school to grad school.
Brockelman adds that the use of the campaign combined with the rebrand helped the firm reinforce its positioning as a stronger partner and provided a clear foundation to carry that message across a wide range of marketing efforts.
The second goal of the rebrand was to clearly communicate the firm’s services. Brockelman acknowledges there had been confusion around the name and descriptor “Global Advisors,” with some uncertainty about what a global advisor actually was.
Therefore, the new name was intended to remove that ambiguity and make it immediately clear what State Street Investment Management does and offers.
The third aim of the rebrand was to create stronger alignment with the broader State Street brand, ultimately improving the overall client experience, according to Brockelman.
He explains that previously, clients encountered two distinct brand experiences – one tied to the legacy Global Advisors identity and another to the corporate brand. As more clients now engage with both, bringing the two closer together made strategic sense.
“We have clients that work with us from an investment servicing as well as an investment management perspective. Unifying that experience for those types of clients made a tonne of sense,” he says.
Brockelman adds that the closer alignment reinforces the ‘One State Street’ approach, which aims to ensure that clients receive a consistent brand experience, whether they’re engaging with the firm’s investment products or its investment services.
“Having brand alignment really sends that message that we’re unified in helping our clients be able to achieve their outcomes,” he says.
He notes that delivering on this approach goes beyond brand identity and visuals, as it also comes down to the smaller, often overlooked details, like ensuring consistency in business cards across all parts of the organisation.
Reaction to the rebrand
Although the rebrand is still in its early stages, Brockelman says he and his team have been monitoring feedback and brand equity metrics. So far, client response has been overwhelmingly positive, particularly around the added clarity the new branding provides, he says.
“A lot of people saying it [the rebrand] makes sense and really clarifies the business that we’re in with that descriptor of investment management,” he says.
Internally, Brockelman admits he was initially concerned about moving away from a name that had been well-known for over 30 years. However, the internal response has been very positive, with many once again appreciating the clearer communication of the services now on offer.
“We had heard in our research that employees also had to spend a lot of time articulating what a global advisor was to clients or friends and family, and the investment management name change really clarifies the business that we’re in and made a lot of sense,” he says.
He adds that the positive internal reaction has been supported by the extensive time the firm spent before the launch explaining the rebrand to employees. This is a strategy that has been in place since the rollout of the ‘Getting There Starts Here’ campaign, he notes.
“Between the campaign that we launched last fall and the new brand refresh, we are making sure that our employees understood the changes that we’re making to the brand, why we were making them, and then asking for their help to amplify and communicate these changes,” he says.
To engage employees with the rebrand and its purpose, Brockelman says he hosted a town hall with the CEO to explain the upcoming changes, set up swag stores at multiple locations to distribute new branded merchandise and provided staff with the information needed to become effective brand ambassadors.
With positive feedback both inside and outside the firm, the rebrand is already helping to reinforce State Street Investment Management’s mission to be an essential partner to its clients. It also clearly communicates the firm’s services and aligns more closely with the broader State Street brand, which Brockelman says is something the firm will continue to focus on moving forward.