Rebranding XE: Powering 280,000,000 users.

SomeOne has been working with renowned currency information service Xe to strategically position and rebrand the business. Xe is one of the first businesses built on the internet, having begun its life in Canada in 1993 as Xenon Laboratories. Its Universal Currency converter was launched in 1995 and it has grown into one of the most popular currency sites in the world, with over 280 million users worldwide. In 2015, Xe was purchased by Euronet Worldwide, Inc. (Nasdaq:EEFT), and joined forces with Euronet’s HiFX, a leading international money transfer business, to offer Xe’s users access to reliable money transfer services as well as currency information under the Xe brand. Yet most people know Xe as a currency converter, but not much else. SomeOne’s task was to help develop the combined business’ strategic purpose and to deliver that through an updated brand identity. Many digital money transfer services position themselves as anti-bank disruptors, focusing on the heavy rates banks charge to send money abroad, rather than the opportunities their new technology affords their customers. SomeOne built a strategic narrative for the business around ‘Powering You’ – putting the power of Xe’s currency information and technology in the hands of their customers. With such an established brand, evolution was smarter than revolution – SomeOne kept what made Xe great, but brought it up to date. Everything is optimised and improved ready for extensive digital use. A simpler colour palette and Google’s universal font Noto form the basis for a more appropriate digital first brand system. SomeOne also created new assets, including a visual brand property – aptly named the ‘Journey’. This represents the flow of people, money and information across the globe and the part Xe play – it’s built to move and change wherever you see it, but it’s uniquely Xe’s. Phase One shows a re-skin of the current site, which has already taken place, along with the creation of a new brand film (made with Make Productions) and visual and verbal assets for social campaigns and marketing. A further evolved digital platform by Xe’s in-house team as well as ongoing app design updates are currently in development. SomeOne Founder David Law says “The marketing sector is often rightly obsessed with catching the customers eye. Yet our task here is not a quick flirt — we don’t want to 'disrupt' customers — I hope they won’t even initially notice the improvements. The work undertaken has been significant and will be evidenced calmly and over time. It’s no small feat to unify two respective giants as a single force in money transfer and currency information. So Xe starts a new journey today, getting intelligent messages to customers in a refreshed and cohesively branded way — while relentlessly improving digital products to strengthen Xe’s leading position.” Mark Ledsham, Xe’s Chief Revenue Officer says “Our brief was to emotionally connect Xe globally with our consumer and corporate customers as well as uniting our colleagues. SomeOne really got under the skin of the business and its core values to develop a strategic brand positioning and compelling new campaign assets that achieve all those goals and will enable Xe to better execute our vision to empower our customers’ international lives” For further information about Xe, please visit Xe.com