Brief

The Isle of Man Government asked us to create a distinctive and impactful visual identity for Finance Isle of Man, and specifically for a campaign to raise awareness of and promote the Isle of Man as an International Finance Centre.

The campaign was to be delivered to targeted audiences via digital and social media channels. It needed to reflect the messages developed for the agreed audience and use market insights to focus on particular segments. The campaign was launched in two jurisdictions: the UK and South Africa.

Objectives included:

• Building awareness of the Isle of Man in key markets.
• Building a positive reputation for the Isle of Man in the chosen key markets (and protecting the Island’s reputation if needed).
• Supporting activities to mitigate the decline of the current level of employment in the sectors.

Approach

Our ambition was to create a distinct look and feel for Isle of Man Finance that reflected the knowledge and sophistication of the targeted audience and brought out the key differentiators of the Isle of Man as a centre of financial excellence without falling into the trap of looking like a tourism campaign. Isle of Man Finance had already done a lot of work to identify a series of messages and had established an overarching campaign theme around the words “natural choice”. For us, it was a case of adjusting the campaign hierarchy so that “Your Natural Choice” became a tagline and connected to statements which drew out the Island’s historic and natural strengths using surprising facts and distinctive abstract images to arrest attention.

Mindful of the target market, we suggested some adaptations to Isle of Man Finance’s brand guidelines to give this campaign its clean, dramatic appearance whilst still clearly part of the Isle of Man Department of Enterprise’s portfolio.

We introduced etching-style illustrations to emphasise landmarks, nature and heritage unique to the Island, adding an eye-catching element to the overall design.

Outcome

The campaign has been rolled out to both the UK and South African markets and is performing very well in raising awareness of the Isle of Man’s experience and expertise as an international finance centre along with its key propositions of strength, stability, independence, respect and agility. The distinctive design elements have been warmly welcomed and now feature widely on Isle of Man Finance communications.