The State Bank

Rebrand & Launch Campaign

““The team at Galapagos took a very thorough and comprehensive approach to our rebrand. From assessing our internal culture, to analyzing our markets and potential growth opportunities, we felt confident in the work that was done to develop not only a new logo, but a new roadmap to delivering the brand to our customers and communities. The new brand has provided our team with a renewed sense of purpose and will guide us into a long, successful future.””
— Ronald L. Justice President & CEO, The State Bank

THE CHALLENGE

As this Midwest bank approached $1 billion in assets, they were looking to bring their brand up to a level to compete not just with smaller community financial institutions, but with the larger, regional players in their markets. The team at Galapagos wanted to ensure that this bank’s new brand stood out among strong competition on the east side of Michigan, and positioned the bank for growth beyond their legacy markets in the future.

THE GOAL

Update the brand to position the bank for long-term growth by creating both a new logo and brand campaign that stands out and is different from what is seen by other financial institutions. Both the logo and the campaign design should boost the bank’s reputation and awareness, and position them as a bank that sees things differently than its competitors.

APPROACH

  1. Analysis of legacy and potential new markets: customer personas and market opportunity

  2. Brand awareness study to determine what brand gaps exist

  3. Benchmark of competitors: overall and product specific

  4. Discovery and workshop sessions with bank’s leadership team to gain insight on their beliefs and bank culture

  5. Redesign of logo, tagline, and brand tone

  6. Development of campaign concepts

  7. Execution of brand campaign using video, digital, outdoor and other types of media

Walking through this process with the bank’s leadership team, we discovered their ability and passion to overcome barriers for their customers by creating products or solutions that may not have existed before. This degree of sophistication needed to be prevalent in the brand. In addition, their commitment to betterment of their customers and communities was always at the forefront, oftentimes ahead of their desire for financial gain. This insight brought life to The State Bank’s new tagline: Find your better state.

The brand campaign sought to achieve a level of hope, a new way of thinking where barriers can be overcome and customers don’t have to wait for things to be just right to get the life they want.