AQR Capital — AOKAY

Branding a Hedge Fund

While at Landor, I had the opportunity to work on the rebranding of a hedge fund. Based right in the heart of Greenwich, Connecticut, AQR as a brand had gotten by on a visual identity literally designed in Microsoft Word and the thought leadership of its founder since its beginnings back in 1997.

The firm turned to us to evolve its identity beyond the shadow of its founding partners.

Screen Shot 2020-04-03 at 12.41.01 PM.png — Room for Differentiation

While the category was starting to embrace visual branding more and more, messaging was another story. Due to the popularity of blackbox solutions that were under lock and key, many firms were mired in boilerplate messaging. In short, there was an opportunity to tell a compelling brand story in the asset management space.

Getting to the Core of AQR

Dozens of stakeholder interviews started to paint a picture of what made AQR unique in the marketplace. What became clear was that its key differentiators were rooted not only in who they were, but in how they went about investing.

Academic Roots

Launched by some of the top minds from the University of Chicago, the firm had matured to having more Ph.Ds on staff than any other hedge fund. Year over year, they were getting more whitepapers published in the top finance journals than any other firm.

Intellectual Honesty

But its academic underpinnings wouldn’t have been enough. Theory is great, but are they just a bunch of quants putting together algorithms to beat the markets? Not the case at AQR. In meetings, AQR was notorious for getting up on the whiteboard and literally teaching clients how their risk parity funds worked.

A Human Touch

What also started to emerge was that AQR was very savvy on executing its trades. Computers weren't doing it, people were.
Clients rejoiced that AQR always took the time to ensure trading fees stayed low. When funds weren't performing, they'd not only answer their phone, they'd call the investor, tell them what was going on.

Brand Story

Book Smart meets Street Smart

We developed a brand platform that told the story of a firm that had a deep academic bench to tackle complex financial theory, but also had the Wall Street chops to execute trades and take an active role in guiding its funds to continued success.