Back from the dead: the revival of AIG

On September 16, 2008, just a day after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy—setting the wheels in motion for one of the worst ever economic crises—the US government bailed out insurance company AIG in a deal worth $85 billion. That figure would later rise to a whopping $182 billion.

The Federal Reserve, which authorised the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to lend the eye-watering sum, said a “disorderly failure” of AIG could add to already significant levels of financial market fragility and lead to weaker economic performance.

Unlike Lehman Brothers, AIG steered clear of the crash, but its impact on the company can still be seen today—and not just financially. The events of 2008 resulted in AIG moving away from its core brand, only to return to it several years later. Inevitably, this required a whole lot of trademark work.

Elizabeth Pearce, director of intellectual property at AIG, explains that before the crash AIG was in the early stages of directing its sub-brands—primarily Retirement and Life, including worldwide Life Insurance, and Property and Casualty, which was also worldwide—under the AIG umbrella. These sub-brands had previously been marketed more than AIG, she says, so it was a significant move to start promoting the core brand more instead.

But, when crisis hit in 2008, this process ground to a halt.

“The assumption when AIG was bailed out was that it would be broken up and sold. So we took the Property and Casualty business, rebranded it worldwide as Chartis and filed new trademark applications for a new logo and name on a worldwide basis, and put the owner as a separate holding company.”

In addition, most of the international Retirement and Life business was sold off, but AIG retained the domestic arm and reverted to using the pre-existing Sun America sub-brand.

By August 2009, AIG had a new chief executive, Robert Benmosche, who began to change the company’s strategy. According to Pearce, Benmosche (who died in February) wanted to strengthen the core business and pay the government back, meaning AIG stopped selling major units.

“He was the right man at the right time,” says Pearce. “He did what he said he was going to do.”

By September 2012, AIG had paid back the government. Following what seemed to be a miraculous turnaround inside four years, the company’s spirits were high and it began running worldwide polls to establish just how toxic the AIG name was, if at all. The results showed that the brand was still strong and not seen as untrustworthy, Pearce reveals, so the company decided to revive the name.

“People forget, people forgive, there is a new scandal out there. This is what we found. The public were willing to accept the AIG name.

“We took our old logo, which was in a rather old-fashioned typeface and dark blue, and refreshed it. We took the serifs off the letters, which gave it a cleaner, more modern appearance, and we changed the colour of the logo to a sort of sky blue. We wanted something that looked clean, healthy and optimistic,” she adds.

Although the company already had “pretty thorough protection” for the AIG letters in foreign jurisdictions, it did not have protection for a refreshed logo, says Pearce, so a new trademark filing campaign was required.

“We filed in every spit of land we could … on the day we launched the new logo, we hit the ground running.”

The new campaign coincided with a sponsorship deal with the New Zealand rugby team, also known as the All Blacks, worth a reported NZ$80 million ($53.4 million in today’s currency). Signed in October 2012, the agreement saw the AIG logo emblazoned on the players’ shirts.

“That meant I had to file in class 36 for financial sponsorship of sporting events where necessary but I also had to file at the bare minimum in class 25, because there will be counterfeit clothing issues—there always are,” Pearce explains.

"Since the filing plan in 2012, we compiled a list of every spit of land where we could file."

“There were a lot of filings and two versions of the new logo that the marketing department wanted me to file on,” she adds.

As the team continues to roll out into new countries, Pearce says, she will file trademarks accordingly.

“They are the most valuable sports franchise in the world. We filed everywhere we expected to use the mark for the next five years. They plan the schedules well in advance, so it’s easy to know which countries they’re going to be in for the next five years.”

Evidence of use

Between the 2008 crash and the revival of the AIG brand in around 2012, the company had mainly been using its Chartis and Sun America sub-brands. But if the AIG name had taken a back seat, what form of trademark use could the company later show in order to renew the AIG registrations? Pearce says that AIG’s website, although not being used in tandem with new marketing campaigns, was used sufficiently, even if it was discreet.

“We legitimately renewed what we could based on website use, including shareholder information. We did not abandon the mark and needed to make sure that did not happen,” she explains.

Despite the U-turn and revival of AIG, the company is keeping many of the Chartis-related registrations for as long as the marks are in use, says Pearce. She adds that most of these were registered in 2009 at the earliest with a ten-year renewal date, so she can postpone making a decision on those marks until 2019.

“Lessons have been learned about Sun America,” adds Pearce. “I have sat down with the marketing department and closely examined all the sub-brands we have. I don’t mind if the services shift around a bit ... but we have not let anything go that we felt had value—institutional or consumer goodwill—as I made it clear that third parties could legitimately use them down the road.”

She points to the 2001 Enron scandal as a good example of why retaining trademarks is important.

“What happened when Enron blew up was that their accounting firm Arthur Andersen went down with them. They dissolved—that was the end of it. About three years ago, a gentleman who owned a very small accounting firm in South Carolina applied for the ‘Arthur Andersen’ trademark for accounting services. And, without any problem because all the old registrations had been cancelled for non-use, he was able to get a registration and call his accounting firm Arthur Andersen.

“Now, is there residual goodwill in that name at this point? Is it one of those things that people vaguely recognise and it resonates with them, or does it mean absolutely nothing? It’s difficult to say. Arthur Andersen is obviously completely gone—it doesn’t matter to them—but this is what can happen.

“A number of financial firms and mortgage lenders were damaged in 2008. People handled that in different ways, but we were very careful about what we wanted to protect. These marks, even if their fame overlaps with notoriety, are still well known to the public. You do not want third parties fraudulently being able to confuse consumers with those names.

“Even if you are not planning on using them as major marks any more, a lot of the time there is significant one-off use that you can legitimately renew registrations with,” she argues.

The lesson is “never let go of something just because you have a new director of marketing and the marks don’t mean anything to him or her, or because you have a new look,” she says. “You may live to regret that.”

Pearce explains that she is “very thankful” that in 2008 the company could, for the time being at least, continue using the sub-brands, “which kept those businesses alive and led to the revitalisation of the company”.

“We are continuing to use Sun America; we will always use Sun America. I am totally opposed to ever dropping our usage of it. It’s a great name, I grew up on that name, I will do my best never to walk away from it. But Chartis, ultimately—maybe ten years from now—will be phased out,” she continues.

Fortunately for Pearce—she says “it’s the one thing I got extremely lucky on”—the chopping and changing had no major impact on licensing deals. Only when AIG was selling units did she have to deal with licensing, as she had to handle some transitional licensing agreements.

“Otherwise, there were no big licensing issues. It could have been a headache but it wasn’t, just because of the nature of financial and insurance services.”

As Pearce also explains, she has a good working relationship with the marketing department.