Financing the future—NIB sharpens up its promise

The Nordic Investment Bank sharpens up its promise to stakeholders by clarifying its mission, strategy and values. At the same time, a new visual identity will gradually be implemented.

NIB’s mission dates back to 2006, and it has served the institution well.

“We didn’t want to change the mission but rather to express NIB’s purpose in a single sentence: ‘NIB finances projects that improve the competitiveness and environment of the Nordic and Baltic countries’,” says Henrik Normann, President & CEO of the Nordic Investment Bank.

To begin with, NIB has introduced the vision of “a prosperous and sustainable Nordic-Baltic region”.

“There was a strong desire within NIB to express the vision in terms of the region rather than in terms of the institution. We are actually rather proud of this unique feature of our institution. We want to do good for the region,” he continues.

The strategy message describes NIB in more detail. The starting point is NIB’s role as the IFI of the Nordic and Baltic countries. Long-term lending is emphasised as this is the number one strength in the eyes of NIB’s customers.

The environmental review is mentioned as a quality stamp. Another choice was to express NIB’s business in terms of project characteristics instead of business areas.

On funding activity, strong ownership and the highest possible credit rating are highlighted as these are the cornerstones for stability and reliability which NIB offers to global investors.

“In the exercise, we also wanted to look at NIB’s values. We asked ourselves how we could describe our ideal NIB employee in a very down-to-earth way. Such persons are highly competent to do their job, fully committed to achieve high quality results and to give their best, but also open and co-operative,” says Gunnar Okk, NIB Vice-President.

When NIB had arrived at the set of vision, mission, strategy and values, something was still felt to be missing.

“In the end, we wanted to find a tagline to pull all of this together. We presented different options to the staff and encouraged them to come up with their own suggestions,” says Jukka Ahonen, Head of Communications at NIB.

Among the staff members, the tagline “Financing the future” received most support, as it was perceived as positive and forward-looking. The word “financing” was appreciated since it clearly indicates what NIB’s core business is, and “future” was felt to go well with the long-term nature of NIB lending, spanning economic cycles.

“Many also thought that “future” reflects the mandate—financing projects that build a better future. Finally, “future” in itself was felt to give the tagline a feeling of hope and freshness,” he continues.

Finally, when all of this was put into place, one final step was left—NIB wanted to sharpen its visual look.

“Having put this effort into clarifying the mission, strategy and values, we also wanted to give NIB a visual appearance that is in line with this,” says Communications Officer Pamela Schönberg.

“We asked ourselves what this Nordic-Baltic international financial institution should look like, and what kind of visual language supports the business and values we represent. The outcome was a set of clearly defined visual guidelines, to be used in all of NIB’s communications with the external world.”

“To help us in this, we called in the Danish architect and designer Bo Linnemann, who has more than thirty years of experience within international design and branding,” she continues.

“We feel that his vision of NIB fits well with the soul of the organisation, with a design revolving around a minimalistic, Nordic hinge and cool and bright colours. The defined visual identity will add graphical consistency to our external profile,” she concludes.

The rebranding exercise included many forms of feedback and staff interaction. The customer survey gave important feedback on how stakeholders see NIB. Middle management was also very active in formulating ideas concerning NIB’s purpose and goals. The staff were involved in two surveys.

“The process with the staff is in many ways as important as the end result. Every organisation needs to have a common understanding of its purpose and goals,” says Joe Wright, Senior Director at NIB, who is also a member of the Management Group.