MML Capital

A confident rebrand created for an urbane business

Although the partners don’t like to bang the legacy drum, MML is a specialist growth capital investor with an extensive deal of experience going as far back as 1988. The business has been through a number of evolutionary stages. The client brief expressed a desire to take the business up a number of levels. The new brand is to exude confidence, pride and an ever present entrepreneurial spirit. We started the commission by developing a raft of research programmes utilising qualitative research with both internal and external audiences. We conducted brand positioning workshops with a core client team in the London HQ. We also conducted a number of one-to-one surveys with international management teams and investors. These activities covered both greater Europe and also measured the brand reputation in the United States.

It swiftly emerged through research outcomes that the cultural drivers spanned both established and emerging themes. It became apparent that there are subtle cultural nuances depending on within which region the business operated. MML has established perceptions of being a very cosy, boutique and collaborative operation. We were to retain a contemporary version of these values along with introducing a new set of future focussed emerging values. MML has always been very adept at empowering staff into key management positions and even though the business is very well established it has a youthful and energised management team. The branding needed to represent a culture that is challenging, ambitious and aspirational. However, it still needed to shore up against PE sector perceptions of snootiness and arrogance – what is very much the inverse of the MML nature.

Expressing an authentic positioning through messaging, imagery and graphics

The overriding brand position is “Tailored Investments”. This communicates to both key audiences. Firstly, it reassures investors that funds are built upon carefully selected equities. Secondly, it conveys the notion of partnership to management teams; tailoring investments around peoples unique businesses and personal aspirations. We use a set of focussed messaging statements which articulate this top level positioning. We also substantiate the messaging by challenging the client to engage with their existing relationships. This is delivered with authentic wording generated from interviews, Q&A’s and testimonials. The photographic image language of the brand features natural portraiture of both staff and invested company management teams.

Extending the visual language into digital and printed communications

A large part of the MML Capital marketing effort revolves around face to face meetings and discussions. This involves the presentation of company culture, credentials, track record and case studies. We created a flexible yet robust PPT template which carried the custom branding theme. This was also supported by a custom made 50+page PPT deck containing infographics, illustrations and a variety of arresting layouts. This enabled team members to chop and change content suited to their meeting. This further supported the Tailored Investments proposition. The Microsoft Office theme design extended further into an entire suite of formal, proposal and business document templates.

Delivering a fully responsive website

The design and development of a corporate website forms another key component of the rebrand effort. The incumbent website had aged over time and was clunky and hard to navigate. We moved the content management system over to WordPress, which is known for it’s ever evolving and pioneering edge. We coupled this with the adoption of subscription based software bolt-ons which empowered the Firedog design team in creating the theme directly. This allowed us to really obsess about the minutiae detail often overlooked by third party developers. Furthermore, it allows the rapid development of page layouts without locking in code. This provides the client with agility in moving blocks of content laterally across the site without the need for redevelopment. It also allows Firedog to continue to support the client in the creation of new sections, simply and without the friction of having to stop and wait for development cycles. The result is a site that will evolve over time, always keeping fresh and relevant.