Name the most popular, memorable brands in America and it’s unlikely a mortgage company will make the list. The parent company of Rocket Mortgage would like to change that.
Rocket Companies announced a rebrand with an ambition to shift its perception from being a transactional mortgage provider to a champion of homeownership.
“I realized there hadn’t been a brand in American marketing that ever tried to own the narrative of homeownership and everything that homeownership represents as a fundamental building block of the America dream,” Rocket chief marketing officer Jonathan Mildenhall tells Fast Company. “I think the marketing in the category is void of emotion, aspiration, and interest, and yet the experience of the category is very, very emotional for people.”
Mildenhall, who was Airbnb’s first-ever CMO, joined Rocket a year ago. He says he found that Rocket’s previous brand wasn’t appealing to key growth demographic groups, like women, young people, and Hispanics, noting, “The new brand has been designed to broaden the aperture of Rocket.”
The former all-caps logo has been transformed into a sentence-case wordmark with softer letterforms, and there’s a new “halo” logo mark and refreshed “Rocket red.” Its new visual storytelling featuring real clients will be diverse, and the data identity system was redesigned to be easier to understand.
“You’re no longer intimidated with how Rocket presents data,” Mildenhall says. “It means that people can feel a lot more confident that Rocket is a brand for them.”
Two custom typefaces that will be used across the brand from printed materials to digital products were named in honor of Rocket Companies founder Dan Gilbert’s eldest son, Nick, who died last year at age 26 from complications of a genetic condition called neurofibromatosis. The typefaces are named Wntl, an acronym for one of Nick’s favorite sayings—“What’s not to like?”—and Bowtie, because he frequently wore them.
“We want to honor the optimism, and we’re committed to making Rocket one of the most optimistic brands in America,” Mildenhall says.
Rocket Mortgages, known as Quicken Loans before a 2021 rebrand, has been among the top mortgage lenders by overall business in the U.S. It was supplanted at the top spot late last year by United Wholesale Mortgage, according to Bankrate, but its ambitious plans for 2025 seem aimed at reclaiming the top spot.
Rocket has an ad planned for next month’s Super Bowl as it continues the rollout of its new identity. It acquired Rocket.com and is renaming several of its subsidiaries to fit under the Rocket umbrella, like the title, settlement, and valuation services company Amrock, which is now Rocket Close.
“The design work that you see is our first step toward realizing this ambition of pulling Rocket way out of the category, having Rocket reshape the category narrative, moving from a financial transaction that seems to be very tactical, to this narrative of homeownership that promises a lifelong relationship,” Mildenhall says.
