Imagineer Technology Group Blog 5 Tips for Branding in the Asset Management Industry

  This post is about branding in the asset management space, but we’ll start with a quick detour to an industry that is much more widely known: coffee. Thanks to the success of Starbucks, many of us have become addicted to coffee in the last 20 years. There may never be another company quite like Starbucks. It produces $23 BILLION in revenue; almost 10 times as much as the next biggest players: Lavazaa, Costa Coffee, Peet’s, Dunkin’, and Caribou Coffee. Add up all of the revenue of these companies and they don’t even total anywhere close to the annual number Starbucks produces. It’s crazy! Yet, walk into any of those chains and they all have a very similar look and feel as Starbucks. They offer a “me-too” menu that includes a plethora of sandwiches, yogurts, and baked goods in an attempt to get the highest number of people into their “stores.” These players made the choice to mimic the iconic brand in the hopes of stealing some of their profits, but have yet to be successful in doing so.  The competitive landscape of the coffee industry doesn’t differ so much from the industry we live and breathe at Imagineer: asset management. Last year the combined assets of the world’s 500 largest asset managers reached $93.8 trillion, and 43% of that is controlled by the top 20 firms. You’ve probably heard of some of them - BlackRock, Bridgewater, Citadel, to just name a few.  What’s interesting is these top performing funds only account for a small percentage of all the funds in the industry. And while their assets continue to grow, the rest of the thousands of firms out there are struggling to grow assets, and in some cases, even stay afloat. You may be asking yourself, for a trillion dollar industry, how come so few firms are able to capture the investable capital? The answer is simple really: for the thousands of fund managers out there trying to become the next iconic asset management firm, they too often succumb to the same strategy that looks and feels “me-too.” Here’s how good coffee shops and asset managers can differentiate themselves through thoughtful brand strategy: