ENGINEERING COMMUNICATIONS AND CULTURAL SYMBOLS FOR CORPORATE REBRANDING – A CASE STUDY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE “METLIFE WAY” IN JAPAN

Abstract

Following a recent acquisition and integration of Alico, one of the strongest non-Japanese insurers operating in the Japanese market, MetLife announced in 2014 that it would change its corporate name from MetLife Alico to MetLife Japan. The rebranding exercise would mean much more than a simple change of names – it led to infer an implicit change of culture, work style and user interactions. While this change did not seem to mean much to policy holders in Japan, whose premiums were well secured by legal bindings, it meant a lot to employees – especially ex-Alico employees, who were starting to feel somewhat left out by the rebranding initiative. This paper monitors the cultural transformation process which occurred at MetLife Japan between 2014 and 2015 and focuses on the internal communications process, in order to illustrate the various phases of change and the impact of corporate actions on employee engagement. Furthermore, the authors observed and monitored the various stages of the “MetLife Way” development in Japan and have collected insights on corporate transformation phenomena at the time of business rebranding. JEL Classification: M39; M14; O17.

Keywords

• Talent, Communications, Rebranding, Culture, Innovation, Engagement, Japan.