Refreshing the Alera Group brand

BUSINESS PROBLEM
Alera Group is a leading independent national insurance and wealth services firm, named to Crain’s Chicago Business 2025 Fast 50 list. Since its founding in 2017, the company has grown rapidly through both strategic acquisitions and organic expansion.
To support growth, Alera Group had developed brand elements and guidelines—but they were limited in scope. This led to inconsistent interpretations across creative teams, resulting in fragmented materials and a diluted brand presence, often unified only by the logo.
Further complicating matters, many acquired firms retained their legacy branding, creating a “house of brands” under the Alera Group umbrella. This caused confusion among clients and prospects. Internally, colleagues shared the Alera Group story in vastly different ways, weakening brand cohesion during a crucial phase of growth.
INSIGHT
Through a series of stakeholder interviews, we uncovered polarizing opinions around Alera Group’s secondary color palette, which featured a range of bright hues. Many practice area leaders felt it didn’t reflect the brand’s professionalism or evolving identity.
A competitive audit revealed that most category players relied heavily on sans-serif typography, generic stock photography, and lacked a truly ownable visual identity—highlighting a clear opportunity for Alera Group to stand out.
SOLUTION
We translated these insights into a strategic and creative refresh that included:
New messaging: We developed a set of concise, brand-aligned elevator pitches centered on collaboration—Alera Group’s core foundational principle.
Evolved visual identity: We created a more distinctive and flexible look and feel using a proprietary graphic overlay inspired by the Alera Group logo. This overlay allowed continued use of stock photography while making it feel uniquely theirs. We also expanded the color system, introducing refined secondary and tertiary palettes to bring greater cohesion and versatility.
Unified brand story: We crafted a compelling narrative that connected all visual and verbal elements, supported by clear voice and tone guidance to help teams consistently tell the Alera Group story in writing and in person.
All of this work was captured in an intuitive, easy-to-use brand guidelines system designed to promote understanding, clarity, and consistency across the organization.