Image courtesy of Nuveen
Nuveen is one of the world’s largest investment managers, serving institutions, financial advisors and individual investors across the globe. The company’s Chief Marketing Officer, Tara Giuliano, led Nuveen’s recent rebrand, evolving elements of its brand identity to better differentiate itself in the highly competitive financial services landscape
Many firms fall back on similar messaging about performance, expertise and stability, making it difficult to stand out in a sea of sameness. But trust has always been the backbone of asset management, and Nuveen saw an opportunity to connect with clients on a deeper, more emotional level that leads with this sentiment.
Nuveen’s marketing team conducted an 18-month research initiative involving more than 70 internal stakeholders, over 800 clients and prospects worldwide, and an extensive competitive analysis focusing on the changing priorities of clients and what they’re expecting from investment managers.
Across every audience segment and global market, one insight emerged above the rest: generational investing. Clients weren’t just interested in short term wins. Instead, they were more focused on the long-term impact today’s investment decisions would have on future generations. This perspective would become the foundation of Nuveen’s new global brand platform, “Invest like the future is watching.”
“These weren’t abstract market observations,” Giuliano said. “They confirmed that investment horizons extend far beyond traditional timeframes, and that our clients are thinking in decades, not quarters.”
“Invest like the future is watching’ opens with accountability — to the generations who will inherit the consequences of the decisions we make today,” Giuliano said.
"Invest like the future is watching’ opens with accountability — to the generations who will inherit the consequences of the decisions we make today,”
- Tara Guiliano, Nuveen CMO
Visually, Nuveen moved away from the category’s overused color palette of dark blues, grays and blacks, introducing a bold orange and green to its identity, along with a photographic style that employs different uses perspective. The team also created “The Window,” a visual metaphor inspired by the company’s existing logo that also leans into perspective while alluding to the firm’s heritage of foresight — further differentiating itself from competitors who focus more on generic product promotion.
And while many global campaigns start in one market and are translated outward, “Invest like the future is watching” was designed for the global market from the very beginning. Unlike traditional financial services campaigns that often lead with investment performance or product capabilities, Nuveen chose to lead with emotion.
“We tested our creative platform across the U.S., U.K., Germany and Japan,” Giuliano said. “‘Invest like the future is watching’ earned its place as our global platform because it resonated in all four markets — not because it was our U.S. team’s favorite idea.”
“The sense of intergenerational accountability — that what we do today shapes what’s possible tomorrow — is a value that transcends market boundaries,” Giuliano continued. “What changed market to market was the application: how we framed longevity in Japan, how we connected with institutional priorities in Germany, how we activated around cultural moments in the U.K.”
While traditional marketing KPIs showed promising results after the campaign’s first phase, Giuliano viewed the success of the rebrand as extending beyond awareness metrics. From the beginning, her team treated brand as a measurable business discipline, building a measurement system that connected brand health to commercial outcomes.
“I consider advisor engagement and sales-qualified lead quality metrics as significant indicators of long-term business impact,” Giuliano said.
In 2025, marketing engaged 92% of institutional clients and 87% of U.S. wealth clients and reached 76% of advisors who generated sales. Nuveen’s average web session duration increased 109% year over year, signaling deeper engagement with educational content and thought leadership rather than one-time campaign traffic.
“The most expensive mistake in a rebrand is building a beautiful campaign on a foundation of assumptions."
Looking back, Giuliano believes one of the most important decisions the team made was resisting the urge to move quickly, instead spending 18 months listening to its audience before making a single creative decision.
“The most expensive mistake in a rebrand is building a beautiful campaign on a foundation of assumptions,” she said.
She also encourages organizations to involve employees throughout the process.
“In financial services especially, your people are your brand,” Giuliano said. “Client-facing teams who feel ownership over the platform will represent it with energy and consistency that no amount of paid media can replicate.”
For Nuveen, the team’s philosophy of brand as a business strategy — not just a marketing project — allowed “Invest like the future is watching” to become something that shapes all of the company’s communications, creating a consistent global identity rooted in the same central idea.
Cannes 2026 Headline:
It was hot. And so is creator content.
Ironically, while AI dominated many of the conversations, the work that resonated most centered on authentic human connection. As consumers grow more skeptical of AI-generated content, they're increasingly turning to real people and trusted reviews to help inform purchasing decisions. Influencers were everywhere in Cannes, but the conversation was less about celebrity endorsements and more about user-generated content and creators who have built genuine communities.
The other major theme was sports—both in real life and online. From traditional sponsorships to gaming, sports continue to be one of the most powerful ways for brands to build community. Video games are quickly becoming the next frontier in marketing, and companies like EA Sports are well positioned to capitalize on the momentum leading into the Olympics.
Of all the post-Cannes coverage we read, we found this Forbes article to be one of the most balanced summaries of the week's biggest themes. Read the full recap here.
From SEO to GEO
How AI Is Changing Brand Visibility
For years, digital marketing has revolved around one goal: ranking at the top of a Google search. But as consumers increasingly turn to ChatGPT, Gemini, and other AI assistants for recommendations, a new priority is emerging: making sure your brand name is part of the answer.
While SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is about helping web pages rank higher in search results, GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) focuses on increasing the likelihood that AI tools cite, recommend, or mention your brand when responding to a user’s question. Instead of optimizing solely for keywords and clicks, brands are optimizing for conversations and citations.
And this isn’t just a fleeting trend—it’s the future. Gen Z is using AI as an everyday advisor, asking for help with everything from shopping recommendations to financial decisions and travel planning. Rather than scrolling through pages of links and piecing the information together themselves, users can get a single, synthesized answer from AI.
This behavior is forcing brands to rethink how they create content and maintain visibility online. Instead of only competing to be the first link in search results, companies are now competing to become one of the trusted sources AI systems reference when generating answers.
And there’s one more step in the decision journey that’s becoming increasingly important - Reddit. Recent research from Reddit found that half of U.S. shoppers verify AI recommendations on Reddit before making a purchase. AI can provide the answer, but online communities help consumers decide whether they trust it.
GEO is not replacing SEO yet—but there’s a balance to utilizing both. While AI tools often rely on existing web content and signals of credibility to determine which sources are trustworthy, this doesn’t mean simply looking at search rankings or choosing the first result on Google. Instead, AI systems evaluate content by considering factors such as relevance, authority, accuracy, and how clearly the copy answers a user’s question. And brands need a consistent, credible presence wherever consumers go to research, question, and verify a recommendation.
This means that strategy can still center on creating valuable content for people, but the way that content is structured should evolve. GEO rewards clear, factual writing, direct answers to common questions, credible sources, structured formatting, and consistent brand messaging across channels—factors that make content easier for both consumers and AI systems to understand.
For example, a skincare brand’s SEO strategy may focus on ranking for a search such as "best moisturizer for dry skin." A GEO strategy takes that one step further: when a consumer asks ChatGPT, "What moisturizer should I use for dry skin?" the goal is for that brand to be one of the products AI recommends.
SEO is still relevant. But as AI becomes the first stop for product research, purchasing decisions, and everyday advice, brands that want to stay visible will need to optimize for both search engines and answer engines.
"Instead of only competing to be the first link in search results, companies are now competing to become one of the trusted sources AI systems reference when generating answers."
- Susanna Mann, Shimek's Gen Z Voice
Summer rerun
With Candice Maskell
Each month, Shimek's Sarah Daniels invites someone she thinks you should know into The Salon, a space to share ideas around vocation vs. corporate ladders, and individuals making a difference in the best way they can.
This summer, we are revisiting past guest interviews just in time to listen on vacation. This July, we're taking another listen to Candice Maskell and when she discovered she wanted off the corporate ladder.
Listen to the episode here.
Shimek is built on connection. We’ve counseled more than 1,700 companies on their agency search and marketing strategy at no cost to them.
Reach out anytime, we'd love to be a resource.
Did someone forward you this newsletter? Make sure you're on the list! Subscribe so you don't miss the next edition of Field Notes.
SubscribeSubstack