PIMFA

The trade body for wealth management needed a sub-brand credible enough to carry a Morningstar partnership. ESG Academy was built from scratch, alongside campaigns on scams, wellbeing and COVID support.

Client: PIMFA
Role: Design lead: brand creation, campaign systems, animation
Discipline: Film and animation
Year: 2019

Objective

PIMFA, the Personal Investment Management & Financial Advice Association, represents firms managing money for UK retail investors. Its members needed education on ESG at a point when the regulation was moving faster than the industry.

That required something with more standing than a member newsletter: a named, branded programme that a data partner would be willing to co-brand with, and that members would treat as a qualification rather than marketing.

Creative response

Design lead across a retained account. The ESG Academy brand was created here, not adapted: logo, colourways, guidelines and the partner lockup.

The wider account ran campaign design, animation, annual reporting, event collateral and content planning.

ESG Academy, a brand from scratch. Logo in three environments (navy, white, and a 'Nebula' treatment), a full branding pack, and a co-brand lockup with Morningstar
Scam Safe. A member-facing campaign with a video component
Financial and Mental Wellbeing. Two finished animations produced for the campaign
COVID-19 support. Rapid-response material pairing PIMFA policy with member guidance, plus Webinar Wednesday briefing notes on the government's response
A digital toolkit built to spec. Assets produced at fixed pixel dimensions across the campaign set, evidence of a defined placement system rather than one-off artwork
Annual report, event stands and content planning. The standing infrastructure of a retained trade-body account

ESG Academy, a brand from scratch. Logo in three environments (navy, white, and a 'Nebula' treatment), a full branding pack, and a co-brand lockup with Morningstar
Scam Safe. A member-facing campaign with a video component
Financial and Mental Wellbeing. Two finished animations produced for the campaign
COVID-19 support. Rapid-response material pairing PIMFA policy with member guidance, plus Webinar Wednesday briefing notes on the government's response
A digital toolkit built to spec. Assets produced at fixed pixel dimensions across the campaign set, evidence of a defined placement system rather than one-off artwork
Annual report, event stands and content planning. The standing infrastructure of a retained trade-body account

Results

3ESG Academy logo environments

2finished campaign animations

4+named member campaigns

The Morningstar lockup is the outcome that matters. A co-branded mark means the identity was strong enough for a global data provider to attach its name to it; that is a commercial validation of the brand work, not a design opinion.

A PIMFA Wins 2018-2019

Recognition

2018 IN2 SABRE Award, Best in Identity Branding. For the PIMFA identity, created when the Wealth Management Association merged with the Association of Professional Financial Advisers in July 2017.

A merger identity has an unusually short runway: the Wealth Management Association and the Association of Professional Financial Advisers combined in July 2017, and the new brand had to appear everywhere at once, print, web, social, email and event collateral, on the day the organisation started existing.

JULY 2017, WMA + APFA merge to form PIMFA

IN2 SABRE 2018, best in identity branding

Financial & Mental Wellbeing, November 2019

In November 2019 PIMFA launched a campaign on the link between money worries and mental health, the harder half of which is that both subjects are ones people avoid discussing, so a campaign about them has to give the audience a reason to start.

The mechanism was a microsite rather than the main website. Earlier campaigns had shown optimised content and distribution pulling strong traffic while conversion stayed low, and the measurement pointed at the main site: too many steps between arriving and doing anything. Moving the destination removed them.

A campaign microsite, hosting the messaging and the routes to a financial adviser
An animated explainer summarising the argument
An interactive infographic letting a reader follow their own financial journey
A pop-up takeover of Spitalfields market, built around a giant floor map of a personal financial journey; the public were asked to walk it and describe theirs, filmed on the day and cut into a summary film that went back out through owned channels
A member campaign pack, so partner firms including Quilter and the Share Centre could run the campaign themselves rather than only amplify it
Social roll-out under #MyFinancialJourney and #FinancialJourneys

The floor map is the part worth pointing at. An interactive infographic and a physical map on the ground at Spitalfields are the same idea in two materials, and the event exists to generate the footage that makes the online version worth watching, the campaign filming its own audience and handing the result back to them.

The work was entered for the Digital Impact Awards under Best Use of Digital by Sector (Financial Services). PIMFA members reported new enquiries arriving as a direct result, and a second stage was commissioned for November 2020 covering the effect of lockdown on the same subject.