Reinventing an iconic brand for growth

Challenge

KPMG is a storied Big Four brand and one of the world’s leading professional services firms. But it had been quiet, underinvesting in its brand relative to competitors. The lack of a single story led to a fragmented experience across lines of service and practices. A new strategy set ambitious targets for core areas, such as Audit and Tax, and new Advisory focused practices, such as digital transformation and ESG. But low awareness of their full extent of service was restricting their growth—at a time when there was an urgent need for relevance and differentiation in a converging and blurring space.

Insight

Deep qualitative and quantitative research clarified what clients and prospects valued across all lines of service. We spoke extensively with employees, opinion leaders and influencers in the space to identify KPMG’s unique strengths and future state.

This diligence showed a clear case for a collective positioning that could support all lines of service globally, and for a collective Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that each member firm could adopt. This was a huge decision and one that leaders could now confidently make.

The positioning “Let insights reveal new opportunity” and its connected EVP of “Opportunity is everywhere” were crafted with a diverse and inclusive team of stakeholders and carefully validated globally. The bold new positioning sparked an appetite for evolving KPMG’s identity. KPMG’s iconic logo provided a springboard, leading us to create a system that frames opportunity while sharply written content gets to the heart of the insight.

Answer

Our work has been enthusiastically adopted globally and activated in marketing and across the experience. Detailed tools to reengineer the employee experience have been deployed, as has training for business leaders and marketers. From global stages, such as the World Economic Forum, to platforms aimed at private enterprise, the brand connects with stakeholders consistently and relevantly. Agency partners have been inspired to create cut-through work that gets results. And the reaction from their 200,000+ employees has been positive and strong. And it’s getting the growth they wanted. The USA – the biggest member firm – has been an early adopter and has already seen strong consideration and conversion results across Audit, Tax and Advisory.