The Rebranding Initiative of Guardian Group

In January 2011, the board and executive committee of Guardian Holdings Limited participated in the evaluation and assessment of Guardian Holdings Group (Group), with the intention of understanding and identifying how our clients saw us and how that was aligned with how we wanted to be seen and understood. It was then that the rebranding journey began.

With Steven Martina, President & CEO at Guardian Group Fatum

The journey in itself taught us many lessons; lessons that have helped us understand the needs of our clients, the communities we serve and the competitive environment in which we operate. This journey has demanded that, as a group, we recognize and harness the benefits of a strategic focus on our core business in our core markets as one team. After months of research, planning and collaboration, we completed a very challenging task: to create an image that will rightfully represent who we are and what we do to our stakeholders. Today, we can celebrate our new brand and commitment to our redefined vision and mission.

What the new brand stands for
Our Group is now at a watershed period in its history. In spite of the challenges of an uncertain global economic future, we are geared for a quantum leap in our growth and success. We have re-defined our new direction with a new vision, mission and set of core values for the whole Group and articulated a value proposition that sets us apart from our competitors, which contains the seeds of our future success.

Our vision and mission
Our new vision: ‘To be the customer’s preferred choice in financial planning and insurance’ identifies our core competencies and strengths and speaks to our business focus and desired positioning. To achieve this vision, we have a mission that states: “We shall operate as one integrated, customer-centric company, a company which sees the world through its customer’s eyes and delivers its brand promise consistently at every touch point.”
We took the time to understand our history, which for us is more of a legacy, that includes over 165 years in the English-speaking Caribbean and over 107 years in the Dutchspeaking Caribbean. As we move forward, our mission should celebrate this legacy, but also carry us into the future. As we drafted our mission, we needed to articulate the state of mind that would be a road map for every member of our staff, across all of our nine main member companies. Our mission states that we shall be an integrated company, one that is customer-centric, and one that sees the world through its customer’s eyes. System integration will be one of the main drivers of this mission, and when fully integrated, our systems and processes will be consistent and congruent, thereby providing maximum benefit to our clients. We will have an even better view of who our customers are and what we need to do to service them more effectively.
With over one thousand of the industry’s best agents, brokers and investment analysts, our extensive distribution channels go beyond brick and mortar; it is about consistently and reliably serving our customers, building longterm relationships and contributing to our communities.

Code of conduct
Trust, integrity, quality and serving people define our code of conduct, our guiding principles and our modus operandi as a Group. We made one change to our core values; trust has replaced growth. Growth is still an integral part of our values; growth has driven our business decisions over the past nine months. We’ve been very busy, aggressively growing the Group and strengthening our leadership position within key markets. During this period, we acquired three new subsidiaries – Royal Sun Alliance in the Dutch Caribbean, Thoma in the Netherlands and Globe in Jamaica. However, the local and global socio-economic environment over at least the last five years calls for a strong focus on trust in corporate life and we see this as paramount to our lines of business. We manage our clients’ risks and naturally trust is essential in that relationship.

Was rebranding really needed?
I have been asked by many, “Did you really need to rebrand to make these strategic decisions?” The simple answer is yes. Our new single brand removes the silos; it is a manifestation, a visual representation, of a new internal state of being. Not until we achieved this new internal state of being, which is the alignment of our vision, image and corporate culture, could we have succeeded in re-branding the Group. A new logo is not a new brand; it simply sets the tone for a singular mindset – becoming one team with one focus. If companies do not proactively and positively manage their brands, they fall victim to allowing the market define who and what they are. This is how misconceptions are construed and how marketing opportunities are missed. The corporate brand or corporate image is a dynamic and profound affirmation of the nature, culture and structure of an organization. Everything an organization does, and does not do, affects the perception of that organization and its performance, products, and services.

Reason
Some of our critics will postulate financial instability as the reason for the rebrand but our strength, stability and performance of our various companies over the years speak for themselves. The ‘Jamaica Gleaner’ newspaper and Mona School of Business in Jamaica selected Guardian Holdings Limited (GHL) as winner of the 2003 Gilt Edged Golden Awards for Jamaica and the Caribbean, Most Admired Company in Trinidad and Tobago in 2003 and the Caribbean Company of the Year in 2000. Guardian Life has captured awards from the Jamaica Stock Exchange for online reporting in 2008, 2009 and 2010. It was also the proud recipient of the Trinidad & Tobago Energy Chamber 2009 Leadership Award for ‘Sustaining the Environment: Making the Most of Green Opportunities.’
In 2011, Guardian Life of the Caribbean  (GLOC) was awarded World Finance Insurance Company of the year and for an unprecedented 4th time GHL was named World Finance Company of the Decade 2001-2010. For the last 10 years GLOC and Guardian General Insurance Limited (GGIL) has maintained one of the highest rating categories from A.M. Best. In 2011 and 2012, A.M. Best re-affirmed the financial strength rating of A- (Excellent) and issued credit ratings of A- for GLOC and GGIL. According to A.M. Best, “The affirmation of the ratings of GLOC and GGIL reflect GHL’s stable leverage position and consolidated balance sheet strength, favorable operating results and premium growth over the past several years.” Just recently, Guardian Group Fatum Aruba won the Aruba Best in Business Award for 2013-2014. There is nothing to dispute, Guardian Holdings and its member companies are financially stable and strong.

Value your workforce
We recognize the tremendous value of our workforce; for us, internal branding is very critical to business success. The true essence of a successful organization is when our employees mirror our public mission in their everyday actions. We remain committed to building our staff’s knowledge of the brand and will continue to ultimately engage them in this process.

The logo
To me, our logo is very inspiring. The logo represents all the member companies of the group, our clients, where they live, where we operate and the financial peace of mind we provide to them. I would like to cite Marlon Darbeau, our Creative Director:
“We began by considering the features Caribbean warmth and basic human communication. This brought us to the point where we analyzed ‘a smile,’ which is a universal expression of positive energy. It was important for us to capture the energy, radiance and brightness of this expression and its relation  to what we wanted to achieve with the new identity. Exploring further, we began to look at truly Caribbean nuances of warmth, joy, happiness, ease and peace of mind. This led us to consider symbols like hammocks, sailboats, actual sails, even looking at modern architecture and how dynamic those expressions are in reality. This brought us to a critical point of convergence of all of these ideas into one single identity.”
I truly believe this new brand signature will help us stand out from the crowd and will assist us in establishing and deepening our leadership role in all of our markets.
I am very excited about what this new brand signals for Guardian Group. We are at the cusp of a new period of outstanding performance. We have the people, we have the tools, we have the focus and we have the right approach. I am proud of what we have achieved as a team and would like to thank my executive team, our employees, our brokers, our partners, our valued clients, the press, the regulators and all our stakeholders for the trust in our vision and invite them to continue the journey with us in the rebranding of Guardian Group.

Guardian Group is a leading integrated financial services group, delivering asset management, Life, Health and Pensions and Property & Casualty products with presence in 21 countries throughout the English and Dutch Caribbean.