Digging for the root ideas:
A process of discovery

First Marblehead Corporation (FMC), based in Marblehead, Massachusetts, is an industry leader in providing affordable and accessible private loans to students.

We began working with FMC in the mid-1990s. At that time, the student-loan industry was changing rapidly, and the company's products were changing along with it. FMC's leaders wanted to change the way the firm presented itself to the world.

Through an ongoing discovery process, we worked with FMC to uncover the company's distinctive strengths and its evolving niche in the industry.

Building consensus:

Throughout our history with FMC, we have worked with people at all levels of the organization, surfacing good ideas and reflecting those ideas back to the organization. One by-product of this process has been a shared understanding of mission throughout the company.

Message creation:

One of our first products for FMC was a capability brochure. The theme of the brochure was "crafting new ways to make education affordable." This emphasized the firm's consultative approach. We found clear and simple ways to describe complicated financial structures, and used jigsaw-puzzle imagery to represent a school's enhanced ability to assemble a strong class using FMC's products and services.

Building on this base, we created a variety of product-related materials, ranging from brochures to posters to ads to trade-show displays. Working with FMC, we developed a new "apples-to-apples" theme. This capitalized on the firm's highly competitive rates, and its willingness to make public comparisons between its rates and those of competing companies. "Apples to apples" helped shake up an industry, sharpen FMC's profile, and accelerate the firm's rapid growth.

Reacting to FMC's growing competitive strength, one FMC competitor paid FMC the ultimate compliment. The headline of their next ad read, "Don't go bananas trying to compare apples to apples!"

Message management:

Our relationship with FMC has continued over the years. We have created product literature, sales kits, leave-behinds, position papers, prospectuses, and -- most recently -- web site content and a revised capability brochure, reflecting FMC's fast-changing skills and product line.

We help great organizations make great things happen.

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