Repositioning a fintech pioneer
to re-disrupt the landscape
When Betterment first launched it redefined the personal investing landscape. But in the decade since, their differentiated position had become industry table-stakes. They needed to restart fresh, find a way to leverage their legacy as an established leader while redefining what disrupting the industry would mean now.
Stakeholders rallied behind the new brand purpose—Making People’s Lives Better. It was powerful. It set a new course. The big lift was expanding the purpose with external positioning. Since by definition “better” means something different to everyone, we needed to find a way to unpack that sentiment, make it specific and scalable.
Clarifying the Opportunity
Objective
Landscape audit and analysis framed the challenge. In the decade since the company first launched, the personal investing space had become incredibly crowded. We needed to identify the core perceptions defining the space today, to target a whitespace that would give the brand room to grow.
Insight
When Betterment launched it differentiated from legacy brokerages by expanding the competitive space, positioning as an innovative tool making investing accessible to all. But now the landscape was redefined again. Brands like Wealthfront and Robinhood stood out from Betterment in the same way that Betterment originally stood out from the legacy brands. They shifted the narrative—from innovation to identity.
Challenge
How to identify the whitespace that gives Betterment room to grow—to become leaders in the “personalized finance” landscape?
Tagline + Key Messaging
Objective
To translate the new purpose—Making People’s Lives Better—into external facing creative that connects brand perception our audiences’ personal identity. Creative that communicates the tangible value of the product, while evoking the higher order benefits of making the brand a long-term life partner.
Approach
A psychographic deep dive of the brand’s target audience of millennial professionals identified a set of core behavior-drivers. Then we developed a messaging system to establish and evolve a new brand story.
Solution
To stand out from fintech products that promise generic visions of wealth, we focused on the unique, specific value created by Betterment’s money management tools.
The brand’s automation creates the space to feel truly invested in any goal you want to make possible.
The tagline unlocks a brand story about all the reasons money has meaning
A simple, scalable promise that inspires a flexible messaging system
Audience Strategy
Objective
Develop a set of comprehensive psychographic audience personas to help product and creative teams empathize and connect with the audience as people, not just financial product consumers.
Approach
We worked in collaboration with the brand’s user analytics team to identify key growth audiences from a basket of potential target demographics. Then did qualitative research into the attitudes, aspirations, and other emotional needs of those groups.
[Detailed audience strategies and personas are always confidential]
Tax Season Campaign
Objective
Reiterate the brand’s focus on lived experience, this time highlighting the thematic portfolios and product features.
Approach
Expanding the tagline into an elastic copy system to serve as the creative throughline for the tax season campaign that launched in parallel with the rebrand.
The ESG portfolio connects with the urgency of activist investors
Visual Storytelling
Objective
Bring the human-centric lens to financial illustrations by focusing not just on what a concept means, but on how it feels to our audience.
Approach
Worked in collaboration with the Trollback design team to identity and unpack visual metaphors that could be uniquely communicated in the brand’s new illustration style.
Key External Transformation
The new identity and brand story re-positions Betterment as the fintech option with personal, human aspirations.
Key Cultural Evolution
The new brand positioning helped unlock the passion and spirit of the brands internal culture, reinvigorating product innovation by articulating a new, more human target.
Project Overview
Agency
Trollbäck and Co.
Case Study
Creative Context
We delivered a new brand strategy, audience strategy, key messaging, and campaign creative to help Betterment evolve from a startup-era robo-advisor to an engaging, human-centric partner helping people make financial decisions that make their lives better.
Strategy + Positioning
Intake
Analyzed stakeholder interviews and conducted ongoing close collaboration to define the challenges and identify the opportunitiesLandscape Analysis + Whitespace
Performed quantitative and qualitative analysis of the landscape and competitive set to identity potential whitespace and help stakeholders understand what it would mean to disrupt the industry in it’s current state
Brand Identity
Brand Strategy
Helped supplement the new Brand Purpose with updated Brand Pillars and Promise
Audience Strategy
Demographics
Conducted qualitative analysis on key audience segmentsAudience Personas
Created psychographic audience persona describing the brand’s target audience
Brand Story
Tagline
Wrote the new tagline and supporting key messaging strategyCampaign
Developed creative concepts and scripts for Tax Season campaign