GCG Financial is a premier financial services firm doing business with mid and large sized corporations nationwide. They provide planning for businesses as well as families in the areas of Risk Management, Wealth Management, Health Insurance, Retirement, Employee Benefits and Property Casualty Insurance.

GCG is a family owned business that has been in business for more than thirty five years and is located in Bannockburn, IL.

CHALLENGE: Since being in business for more than 35 years the management of GCG was very aware of who they were and what they were all about. They didn’t however do a very good job of telling that story. Our job was to take their basic business philosophy and bring it to life.

“Our business is built on a tradition of doing what is right, for the customer, for the employee, for the community.” –Alan Levitz, CEO and son of the founder Robert Levitz.

This core value was used as a way to demonstrate their point of difference in a very competitive and cluttered field. From this we were charged to create work, a tone of voice, and a look and feel, that could be used in sales materials as well as with GCG employees as a way to help promote this core belief.

Moving forward, VALENTI was to work with the Blue GCG font logo. We were charged with developing a brand identity and brand line to support the core value proposition. From there, all of GCG’s sales materials and the website were to be redesigned and developed as a cohesive brand package.

SOLUTION: After our discovery phase of conversations and interviews we developed and agreed on a range of brand guidelines including the GCG brand personality as the foundation of the look and feel moving forward. From this we provided GCG with a range of conceptual ideas to help us find the best way to articulate their values. These top-line concepts acted as the starting point for all future work. This is a similar approach we take with many clients.

The concept chosen was: Be well. Do well. Plan on it. It balanced both the business and family sides of their business, the nature of doing good and of course the stability of planning for the future.

We also expanded on their color by adding a few of our own. Knowing there needed to be a division made between Family and Business client communications as well as GCG corporate we created a color palette that served as the design base in all materials.

WEBSITE 

The original GCG Financial website was built on a template owned and managed by a financial industry host company. The reason for this was due to compliancy issues in the financial services industry and the constant updating of regulated data and information.

GCG made the decision to move away from this arrangement in search of a more user friendly and consumer friendly approach. They wanted to take control of their site in-house even if it meant giving up some of the financial information they were getting from the parent company.

More importantly, the site was viewed as a core marketing and sales tool. It was key for the site to extend the brand personality and core essence, while driving the messaging that supported GCG’s point of difference and key products. It also was important for the both the site and collateral materials to look and feel as if it came from the same place and reiterated the same values and benefits.

We built the new GCG Financial website on a CMS called Concrete 5. Known to be very stable and user friendly to unsophisticated admin users they have been making the bulk of their updates for the past three years. We supply them with images and occasional guidance in organization or elements they are not equipped to create.

Since its build in 2009 there has been no major hosting or content issues.

If you’d like to visit the site: gcgfinancial.net