— PROJECT NAME
Mox virtual bank:
verbal identity
— ROLE
Head of Copy
@ R/GA London
— DATE
Summer 2018
I was on the team commissioned by Standard Chartered Bank to develop a revolutionary piece of Fintech: Hong Kong’s very first virtual challenger bank.
First, we defined the strategic vision for the new brand. Then we went through an extensive naming process, generating thousands of potential names for a mobile neobank. Then we built a comprehensive visual and verbal branding system, inspired by HK’s very first dollar coin. It gave us our brand story: ‘the language of money’.
Mox aims to be the smartest digital banking platform in Asia, giving customers control over their finances like never before. The virtual experience lets you track savings and investments, enjoy rewards and get personal insights based on your behaviour.
The Mox manifesto video (written by me).
Finding the right name
We eventually reached the name “Mox”, which alludes to many things including “Money”, “More”, “Multiply” and “Experience”. But to get there, we went through an extensive brand naming process. We spread our net wide and generated over 2,000 potential new names. Then we filtered our list down via:
– Trademark screening (has the name already been registered?) – Linguistic/cultural checks (could it mean something negative in other languages, especially Cantonese?)
Below are some of the early names we explored that didn’t make the cut. Every candidate had a simple design treatment to give it some context and a rationale describing its merits.
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A new tone of voice
Once we had our brand name and visual identity, we needed a tone of voice. I defined the new tone’s pillars and principles, created a messaging framework and established copy guidelines across social media and mobile alerts/push notifications.
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Applications & Bank Card
To test our new brand we played with a mix of English and Cantonese, something you see lots on the streets of Hong Kong. We also created a premium credit card that glows in the dark. The sleeve it arrived in carried some key messaging, welcoming you to Mox and inviting you to discover the app.
