Toronto-based insurance company Foresters recently unveiled a brand redesign aimed at reinforcing and further communicating its core purpose of enriching the lives of its members, their families and the communities in which they live.
“The name Foresters has always been a bit of an albatross for us,” admitted Kasia Czarski, senior vice-president, chief membership and marketing officer for Foresters in Toronto. “It’s not clear what we are, and most people misconstrue it to be that we have something to do with trees.”
Foresters is formally known as a “fraternal benefit society,” defined as an organization that is run on a not-for-profit basis and providing benefits for individuals having a common link, such as occupation, charitable purpose or religion. However, Czarski said that one of the challenges facing the organization is the antiquated terminology has little relevance today.
“It needed to be modernized on many different fronts, and we needed to improve people’s understanding of who we are and what we do,” said Czarski.
Established in 1874, Foresters currently has an estimated 947,000 members split between its operations in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. With no consumer marketing and only what Czarski characterized as “limited” B2B marketing, the company has a relatively low profile within the insurance sector. “It’s an organization whose story is not very well known,” said Czarski.
As part of the brand redesign, Foresters conducted an internal exercise aimed at determining what it wanted to stand for, arriving at eight functional and emotional attributes: accessible, competitive, experienced and responsive, while the emotional attributes are caring, contemporary, inclusive and respectful.
Developed by New York design and branding agency The Partners – whose UK office had already been working with Foresters – the revamp includes an updated version of the company’s “celebration mark” logo that replaces its previous red, yellow and blue colour palette with aqua and plum.
The company’s mandate is further underscored on the Foresters website, with the “For” part of the company name presented in a different colour and paired with phrases such as “member benefits,” “life insurance” and “everyday families.”
The company has also abandoned the use of stock photography, which Czarski said is a “real problem” in the insurance sector.
“When we did a complete industry review, we took everybody’s photography and put it on a wall, and you could not tell who was who. In fact, we used some of the same pictures.” Pictures on the Foresters website and other merchandising materials now feature actual members.
