INTERVIEW: Inside Phoenix’s rebrand to Standard Life

Savings and retirement giant Phoenix Group recently confirmed it would rebrand under the Standard Life name in March. More than simply capitalising on its strongest brand, however, Group Brand and Marketing Director Ben Rhodes believes it offers the chance to reimagine how pensions are presented to UK consumers.

Ben says that Phoenix, which had grown through acquisitions, has been on a journey to “build an organically growing, customer centric business.”

The last three years have seen Phoenix trebling its brand strength. However, Ben says that this investment was not about making the brand “famous” but about turning the group into a significant force in terms of influencing public policy.

The goal, Ben explains, was never to become a household name but to elevate Phoenix’s stature as a corporate brand and to be as strong as possible within the key audiences of investors, the City, policymakers and future talent.

“Given the pension system has significant challenges, we wanted to build strong support in the halls of power. It was important to raise our profile to do societal-level, system-wide change: the kind of work the biggest long-term savings and retirement company should be doing.

“We couldn’t succeed just by employing brilliant public affairs people if we couldn’t get in through the door in the first place.”

One of the most crucial initiatives was the Phoenix Insights think tank (now renamed as Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement), which has allowed the group to produce research around the UK’s changing demographics and what this means for retirement policy.

The work has also built Phoenix Group up as an employer brand, moving “from nowhere to being in the top five” from a recruitment perspective. This means it can attract much better talent, Ben explains.

From Phoenix to Standard Life

Now all of this will be brought under the Standard Life name. Acquired in 2021 from what is now Aberdeen, the Standard Life brand is the oldest one in the Phoenix stable, founded in 1825.

“We now have a huge opportunity to carry all that brand equity across to Standard Life. The best bits can be transferred seamlessly.”

He notes that when it was purchased from Aberdeen, the Standard Life business hadn’t been invested in. Now it can compete in workplace markets with a strong consolidation proposition and has built up its annuities offering in the retirement solutions space.

The choice of Standard Life rather than Phoenix to carry all of this forward is a natural one.

“Standard Life is an incredibly strong brand: a true household name with extremely high awareness,” Ben explains. “It has all the key attributes that make entry into this category difficult: financial resilience, delivery and good service.”

Ultimately, however, this is just the foundation. Ben wants to go further and make the brand about “more than being big, strong, resilient and trusted.”

He argues there is an opportunity to better understand and cater to direct contribution (DC) savers. As he notes, there is an “impending crisis” in the near future, with millions of DC savers having made minimum contributions.

“It’s a big mission to lean into that. We call ourselves a purpose-led organisation and have a massive role to play.

“Most people don’t really know if they’re saving enough. Even when they do think about it, it’s often with a sense of dread.

“There’s a huge opportunity to become more relevant, to stand in the shoes of customers and understand the lives they lead.”

With few people really engaged in their pensions, and even fewer outside the mass affluent group able or willing to pay for expensive financial advice, Ben ultimately wants Standard Life to be present with tools, propositions and services, in a move “from being a passive product provider to being much more present in people’s lives”.

“People generally need guidance and reassurance for massive financial decisions, and it’s daunting. We can be a brand where people feel comfortable asking those questions.”

Ultimately, the redesigned Standard Life needs to be a balance: “still strong, resilient, trusted and reliable, but also friendly, relevant and modern.”