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Ogilvy & Mather help Nationwide debut new logo and new ad featuring Peyton Manning

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Nationwide Mutual Insurance has decided to dig into its vaults as part of a complete corporate branding overhaul. The insurer will be debuting a redesign of its logo, which puts the soaring eagle back where it belongs, alongside a new campaign starring Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning. The ad, which shows Manning humming along with and making up his own lyrics to the familiar Nationwide jingle, was created by Ogilvy & Mather, who returned to Nationwide recently after a long absence. Ogilvy & Mather first won the Nationwide account in 1963, and soon after created the insurer's iconic jingle. It lost the account in 1991. McKinney are still the company's lead agency, but Ogilvy has landed a multi-year marketing agreement with Manning, which ties in with Nationwide's three-year agreement to become the official insurance sponsor of the NFL, which allowed them to use broader NFL imagery. It will begin airing on Thursday during the NFL's first regular season game on NBC.

The insurer will be debuting a redesign of its logo, which puts the soaring eagle back where it belongs, alongside a new campaign starring Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning

The company is reportedly moving towards a “One brand approach,” that will bring all of its services under the Nationwide banner, whereas previously, the company's various product lines were marketed under different brand names such as VPI Pet Insurance, Allied Insurance and Harleysville Insurance. Matt Jauchius, Nationwide's chief marketing officer, said the idea is to “Align the entire company behind the most powerful brand asset,” they have, which is, of course, the nationally recognised Nationwide name and the “Nationwide is on your Side” jingle.

Nationwide - “Jingle” with Peyton Manning

The Nationwide “N & Eagle” logo first appeared back in 1955 when the company was known as Farm Bureau Mutual. The company has been using the blue box logo called the “Frame” since 1998, but the eagle has been making a comeback of late, appearing briefly on a waving blue flag at the beginning of ads in its ongoing "Join the Nation" campaign, which started in 2012. The company decided to put the eagle back where it belongs after research that revealed it had a 50% higher brand awareness association with Nationwide than the blue box. Jauchius calls the eagle a unifying mark to unite the company under the Nationwide name. Of course, the eagle is still quite far removed from its elder cousin, with a redesign from Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv to make it look more real and imposing.

The ad shows Manning humming along with and making up his own lyrics to the familiar Nationwide jingle, which was created by Ogilvy & Mather

Adam Tucker, president of Ogilvy & Mather, New York, said they dug deep into the agency's archives while they were researching the new campaign. He said everyone at Ogilvy “Couldn't stop humming” the iconic jingle and that because “The line is so infectious and it sticks with you,” they “Wanted to do something with dramatising” it. They even went so far as to meet with Joel Raphaelson, the former Ogilvy employer who actually wrote the jingle. He told them that the jungle was written in an effort to help people realise that the insurance company was “On their side.”

Official Ogilvy & Mather Website

Official Nationwide Mutual Insurance Website

Benjamin Hiorns is a freelance writer and musician from Kidderminster in the UK. He likes the eagle logo, but then, the blue box thing was a little bit naff, right?

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