A holistic brand refresh for the internationally positioned VP Bank Group
Hotz Brand Consultants, in collaboration with Calydo, supported the internationally active VP Bank Group from Liechtenstein in revamping its brand identity—from the brand’s forward-looking positioning to the modernization of its brand design and its group-wide implementation.
A clear positioning and a strong, self-confident appearance are increasingly important success factors in the banking world as well. Against this backdrop, the international VP Bank Group has revised both its brand strategy and its brand identity. The further developed brand sets an important course for the future and is intended to signal to clients as well as employees that the Bank is looking ahead and sees change as an opportunity.
The goal was to position the company in a globally networked, digital world in a modern way without losing its roots. To achieve this, the strategists at Hotz Brand Consultants worked with VP Bank's brand experts to sharpen their understanding of what VP Bank wants to stand for and can stand for in the future in a radically changing environment. In close collaboration with Group Executive Management, global leadership teams and selected employees at various Group locations, the success drivers of the VP Bank brand were systematically identified and integrated into the existing brand positioning.
Building on these foundations, VP Bank's very specific brand design was also modernized with a high sense of identity. Special attention was paid to merging the new requirements of the Asian markets with the traditional Liechtenstein values into a new entity. The brand design was developed in close collaboration between the design team of Hotz Brand Consultants and the branding department of VP Bank. This collaborative partnership ultimately succeeded in creating a variety of fresh and unconventional brand experiences.
The corporate website as a customer-centric touchpoint
In the transfer of the brand identity to the digital touchpoints and the website, Calydo together with Gridonic accompanied the digitalization experts of VP Bank. The challenge was to guide users efficiently and intuitively to the information they were looking for - whether on their desktop or on the go on their cell phone. In a comprehensive UX process, the website's modules were defined and detailed style guides were developed. The new VP Bank website impresses with its generous use of animated graphic elements. At the same time, the content pages can be built in a modular way using a large number of different components, which allows for dynamic and very flexible content management. The specially protected area for intermediary clients on the VP Bank website works in the same way. The content management system Drupal 8 was used for the implementation.
An experiential employee event
Experience shows that a brand must be experienced in order to be lived by the company with conviction. Against this background, it was eminently important to involve all VP Bank employees and to take them along into the brand's future. For this purpose, VP Bank's event and communications team, together with Hotz Brand Consultants, realized a rousing brand experience party in Liechtenstein. Introduced by the new brand movie, produced by Calydo, the approximately 450 employees came into contact with the contents of the new brand strategy in a playful way at various experience stations. The activities ranged from simultaneous chess to hologram messages and virtual reality mock tests. Scaled versions of the experience stations were made available digitally to employees at VP Bank's international locations so that the entire company could experience the joint launch into the future.
"The brand refresh involved many challenging tasks. Today, we can say that we have implemented them very successfully. The feedback we have received so far from our customers and employees has been extremely positive, which of course pleases and motivates us. Our partners have always supported us professionally in this process and on a human level, too, it was a collaboration at eye level" Tanja Muster (Head of Group Communications & Marketing at VP Bank Group).
Responsible at VP Bank: Tanja Muster (Head of Group Communications & Marketing), Felipe Gomez de Luis (Head of Branding & Digital Communications), Sonia Garcia Luis (Brand Manager), Lieu Nguyen (Visual Designer), Katja Schädler (Visual Designer), Alexander Bühler (Senior Corporate Communications Manager), Cornelia Zeh (Corporate Communications Manager), Petra Kretschmar (Event Project Manager), Franziska Grüneberg (Digital Marketing Manager). Responsible at Hotz Brand Consultants: Chris Steinacker (Managing Director), Bastian Schneider (Strategy Director), Dominik Streich (Creative Director), Patrick Ensslin (Experience Director), Miriam Pfäffli (Brand Consultant). Responsible at Calydo: Lukas Hotz (Director Digital & Motion), Pascal Hurschler (Consultant), Sandi Elezovic (Interaction Design), Walter Schmid (Copywriter), Haris Pepic (Frontend Engineer), Peter Arnold (Senior Film Producer), Serge Djoungong (Film Producer), Carlo Laffranchi (Senior Motion Designer), Marceline Iten (Producer). Responsible at Gridonic: Alexander Muischneek (Managing Partner / Project Management), Peter Siska (Managing Partner / Engineering), Beat Temperli (Software Engineer), Sebastian Prein (Software Engineer), Raphael Nussbaum (Software Engineer). Photography, illustration and text: Richard Stapleton (photography environment), Aranda Fréderic (photography portrait), Thomas Danthony (illustration), Markus Rottmann (text).
