Taking the Brand to the Next Level

by Liesl Smith, SVP Marketing 

It’s not every day you find yourself in the driver’s seat of a major global rebrand, reimagining a story that hasn’t changed in almost ten years and guiding the branding process of one of America’s fastest growing fintech companies.  

The world of payments is perhaps one of the most exciting industries and despite COVID-19 and other external ‘Michael Porter’ forces, the payments landscape remains incredibly resilient and becoming more dynamic. Daily, I am seeing a ton of innovations going on in areas from touchless to social commerce to self-service to unattended kiosks. There is no shortage of start-ups, investment, or payment ideas. 

And yet, when you look at many of FreedomPay’s competitors or other payment companies out in the world, it’s often hard to differentiate one from another, certainly at a glance. Many promise growth, secure payments, and easy omni-channel experiences yet visually continue to rely on tired images of payment devices featuring groups of happy ‘friends’ congregating, a merchant gleefully accepting a payment or a well-dressed western traveler on a mobile device.

Surely, it’s time for a change! And FreedomPay is uniquely positioned to help lead that change.

FreedomPay is a disrupter. FreedomPay is a world leader. FreedomPay is an innovator. 

We felt we wanted to position ourselves as something different unlike any other fintech company today.  We wanted to represent our company as one that is constantly innovating, is adaptive and is technologically savvy, putting customers at the center of the universe.

Therefore, it seemed appropriate that we would work with a brand consultancy (thank you 20nine) who would challenge our thinking, debate our beliefs and help us to deliver a compelling story along with a bold sense of purpose that would resonate globally. To create a message that would match the ambitions of our clients and partners and yet align with our short and long-term strategy. It should be a message strong enough that it would sit heads and shoulders above our tech competitors and immediately engage our audience in a fresh and powerful way. And so, Next Level Happens Now was born.

David Aaker talks about the ‘power of the brand’ and how every marketing professional realises the value of the brand, when it works. Back in 2014, McKinsey reported how strong brands outperformed the market by 73 percent up from 62 percent in 2013. And according to many of my peers, brand relevance is as powerful today as it was then, especially when it’s driven by a strong sense of purpose or intent. It is still true that customers are more likely to remember and purchase products and services that make a difference or conjure a strong emotional connection.

Undoubtedly, our teams at FreedomPay have a very close working relationship with our clients and partners. Our business model is far more collaborative and consultative than ‘out of the box’ options, arguably at FreedomPay we know why and how to deliver the right products and services via our platform and the community we’re building. 

Within a few weeks of my arrival at FreedomPay, I asked one of my colleagues why clients and partners chose FreedomPay, she replied, “We are team players, and it is our people who add tremendous value to the product from beginning to end.” It was exciting to hear. 

After all, a brand is only as strong as its team’s ability to deliver on its promise. From top to bottom, everyone at FreedomPay understands that “Next Level Happens Now” is the promise we make to our clients and partners to help them realize their next level of performance right now. In other words, the future of commerce is not some hypothetical state that will come to be one day in the distant future. It’s happening now when you commit to making it happen as a unified team, company and a brand.

For more on our brand story please visit www.freedompay.com