Mashreq

As the second oldest bank in the UAE, Mashreq had long been a pioneer, setting a benchmark for banking in the region.  This leadership faced a challenge from the growing number of new entrants to the market, international banks with well-known brands.  To counter this rising threat, Mashreq took the bold decision to create a new positioning and value proposition to serve as a powerful guiding principle for the entire organization.  Lippincott worked with Mashreq over a two-year period to shape a brand that unites the business behind a common idea, a positioning that uniquely complements the UAE region in which it operates, while at the same time focused the bank on serving its increasingly demanding customers and competing with international brands.

The first part of the journey was to analyse the customer needs in depth and define a brand positioning for the bank that Mashreq aspired to be. This exploration of customer perceptions and needs pointed to a required customer banking relationship based on mutual respect and an open style of experience. “Opening the Way” was chosen as a core idea, signifying to customers the financial promise of opening opportunities, the service promise of opening access and the more human relationship promise of opening up.

Six months before the external launch of “Opening the Way”, we worked with senior management across the business to identify what they would do differently in their divisions to deliver the new brand promise, and developed exercises and tools to help people understand what the new positioning meant for their day-to-day roles. This provided the crucial guidance that people needed to ensure that, when launched externally, the promise portrayed in communications and new retail environments, would be delivered in the customer experience.

A broad internal communications and change program was kicked-off with an inspirational launch event for all bank employees. The CEO underscored the central role employees play in delivering the brand, and senior management explained what would change to deliver the new positioning and what this would achieve for the business. Mashreq’s brand attributes were then interpreted physically in a beautiful performance by Cirque du Soleil.

A fresh visual identity was designed to signal the important changes in how the bank would operate. The logo takes its cue from the heritage of the business, remaining faithful to both the Arabic and Latin typeface, while re-creating the sunrise (al mashreq) from the previous identity, lighter and more open to reflect the opening-up of the business.

Beneath the symbolism, we redesigned the branch and website experiences to reflect the ‘open’ promise in the environment and in the customer journey. We assessed the impact of critical customer touchpoints in delivering the promise and redesigned the visual, physical and verbal experience.