Case Blog

In one of my earliest postings in September of ‘07, Global Brands, I wrote: “As we transition to a digital world, managing our brands becomes ever more demanding. Microsoft, which has done wonders with the Windows and Office brands, stumbled as they tried to rebrand Hotmail, IM and Search under the Windows Live brand. I am certain that with their unlimited resources they employed several of the best branding agencies in the business, but they still struggled through this transition. Those of us who come to this with much less in the way of outside assistance must clearly understand that we need brands that can travel globally…All of us in the B2B or B2C space tasked with transitioning to the digital world are looking for the Holy Grail, an umbrella brand that inspires confidence and trust and at the same time can support many vertical channels. Strategy sessions and market tests play an important role in this process. Marketing dollars invested in branding will yield significant returns, although without strong digital brands there is not much chance of survival for print brands, even those with storied histories.”

In the fall of ‘07, my partners at Austin Ventures and I were still in the search mode to find a platform that we could acquire and grow.  It was almost a year later when we zeroed in on the institutional financial sector, with a focus on asset management. In fairly short order, we acquired Asset International, The Trade, and Strategic Insight.

We decided that we would operate under the Asset International name, as it provided a very clear brand and would allow us to add significant brands under the Asset International umbrella. Today we have established a new London office for Strategic Insight to support the Simfund Global database and analytics platform. In the next several months we will open a comparable office in Hong Kong for our expanding client base to support these well-known business intelligence products and services. This client base historically has been composed of mutual fund companies, but recently we have seen it expand in the U.S. to include other business sectors, including private equity firms that have a strong interest in the financial sector.

In addition, this past spring we launched Plan Sponsor Europe out of London. With this very strong retirement-focused brand and its print, online, research reports, and conference components, Plan Sponsor Europe is offering longtime clients like State Street (STT) a known brand to support their defined contribution efforts in the United Kingdom and on the continent. They have reserved our prime real estate, our back cover, to deliver their message for the balance of the year. In ‘11 we will launch Plan Sponsor Asia/Pacific edition. Recently, Global Custodian released its 2010 Prime Brokerage Survey, which received wide coverage in the business press and was quickly established as the standard for this segment of the industry. This brand, along with Strategic Insight, has had a global impact for more than 20 years.

The TRADE expanded its business several years ago by launching The TRADE Asia and this year launched The TRADE Growth Markets. They also expanded their global web presence with www.thetradenews.com. Finally, ai5000, which focuses on the professional information needs of the Chief Investment Officers of the largest global assets owners, launched their Chief Investment Officer Summit (CIOS) in New York and will hold the second summit in London on October 7th and 8th.

We will continue to expand our business by investing in our core brands on a global basis and serving the needs of our client base in the major markets they operate in.

You can learn more about our global brands and how they can assist you build your global market share by going to www.assetinternational.com.

This is a guest blog post by Jason Cassidy, Asset International’s Senior Vice President of Strategy and Development.

By Jason Cassidy

The barber shop where I get my best insight on the economy, the local plumber who received many phone calls from my wife when I tried to remodel our bathroom myself, and the doctor who gets a lot of business from my 4 year old and 2 year old during cold and flu season are just 3 of the over 20 million small businesses in the U.S. with fewer than 20 employees, according to the US Census Bureau. At Asset International we have several categories of small businesses as customers. For example, we have plan advisers who in many cases are 1-person companies. We also have plan sponsors who in many cases are also the owners of small companies.

Small businesses need information but they also need tools and services to help them be more efficient. At its core, a small business wants to take care of its customers and employees and make money in the process–just as any large corporation. However, specialization in a small business may not exist. The same person responsible for choosing the company health plan may also manage the marketing budget. Companies serving small businesses need to keep this in mind and think more broadly about what products and services we can provide. Our small business customers not only need information about the financial markets but also need tips on how to acquire more customers or set up a billing system.

Because the person who is choosing the 401K provider has a lot of other things to do during the day, that person can not be expected to be an expert in all the nuances of being a plan sponsor and certainly does not have the staff to do analysis for them. We need to make access to information quick and easy and add service wherever possible. As well, small businesses do not have large budgets for research on the best 401K provider, for instance, so we need to create high value, low-cost options. We and other companies that cater to small businesses should think high volume, high value, quick and easy, and low cost. Asset International and other companies serving small businesses need to keep in mind that what we are trying to do is help small businesses grow.

About Jason Cassidy, Asset International’s Senior Vice President of Strategy and Development.

Prior to joining Asset International, Mr. Cassidy was Vice President of website solutions for Register.com, where he oversaw sales, operations, customer service, marketing and product management with the primary focus on small business customers. Previously, as Vice President of Reed Business Information, he was actively involved in global strategy and development, including M&A initiatives and international development, and managed a portfolio of websites. Mr. Cassidy earned an M.B.A. from Duke Fuqua School of Business (2007) and an A.B. from Harvard University (1998). Originally from Boston, he and his family reside in Staten Island, New York.