Bringing Wall Street to Main Street

How American Century Investments stays connected to its customers

American Century Investments has grown from a small mutual fund manager in 1958 to a multi-disciplined, global asset management firm, managing over $140 billion in assets. With this evolution came the need to develop a corporate brand strategy that tied all of its business channels and diverse investment offerings together and communicate its combined value to a broad customer base. Each channel was managed independently, resulting in inconsistent visual identities and conflicting product and company information.

Consistency vs. differentiation: a balancing act

American Century worked with Tenet Partners to create a values-based, unifying brand platform. At the same time, given the varying needs of market segments American Century serves, we developed differentiated communications systems for each business channel, built upon a shared visual identity. This enabled the company to have a stronger corporate presence while allowing for some individual expression for its targeted offerings.

Part of this initiative was a name change and identity refinement. By adding “Investments” to the communicative name, we helped the company achieve clarity of message to all audiences. As web and mobile banking took off, we optimized the identity to create a consistent experience across all platforms and devices.

The new brand platform inspired a company-wide effort to integrate business processes, and product and company information across all channels. The firm comprehensively addressed every customer touchpoint, from print and television advertising, to the web, marketing communications and investor communications.