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Branch Transformation: Inspiration, Impact and Dynamic Storytelling
Weber Marketing Group’s Josh Streufert is leading a session on branch transformation with Ameriana Bank’s CEO Jerry Gassen and EVP Deborah Robinson at the BAI Retail Delivery Conference in Las Vegas on October 13th.
Branch Transformation – Inspiration, Impact and Dynamic Storytelling
Tuesday, October 13th, 3:00-3:45 PM
The role of the branch is changing in light of new customer preferences and the onslaught of digital and more self-directed banking. But, what opportunities become possible when customers and staff are inspired? How can a branch use technology to promote a more human experience? In this session, you’ll hear the story of how one organization turned a flagship branch into a branded retail experience that uses technology and dynamic storytelling to inspire the community.
- How a branch facility can inspire staff and customers alike
- Integrating social media into the branch experience
- How dynamic storytelling can foster a strong brand experience
It’s not too late to register for the financial industry’s premier conference for powerful tools and actionable insights. View the full conference agenda here.
New Brand & 15 Branch Rollout for Pen Air
Pen Air took an ordinary brand makeover and created a new organizational narrative based on trust, respect and ‘communerosity’. Learn what an “inside-out” enterprise-wide cultural brand transformation looks like. How a top to bottom research-led process can transform your credit union brand experiences and culture for growth.
FOLLOW THIS LINK to download the article published on creditunions.com.
This article is the intellectual property of CALLAHAN & ASSOCIATES. No part may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, published, or otherwise communicated, in printed form or electronically, without the express written permission of CALLAHAN & ASSOCIATES.
5 Things to Tackle First in Transforming Your Branch Model Performance
If you’re like everyone else in retail banking, you’re probably trying to figure out how to keep your branches relevant and profitable in a traffic-declining environment. It might surprise you that some of the most important items to tackle in your branch evolution have nothing to do with architectural design. To get started, what you really need to do is define the optimal business model for your organization and your markets. There are many, many factors that will influence your model, but here are five candidates for you to consider as you begin your journey.
(1) Transaction Management
As transactions continue to migrate to mobile, P2P, smarter ATMs and other digitally based devices, you have to come to terms with how you will handle basic teller transactions in the most efficient manner. This is not a “bad thing” as your cost per transaction will reduce significantly compared to a human interaction. But before you go eliminating all your teller positions, the most important influence in this decision is the make-up of your member audience and prospects in the geographic area you are trying to serve. Education, income, lifestyles and even other retailers influence behavior. You need to find the transaction-handling balance that’s most relevant and convenient for your members and the way they chose to bank.
(2) Evolving Staff Roles
Staffing levels and staff roles are a critical component in the design effectiveness and focus of your model. Shrinking footprints and declining transactions suggest both a reduction in full time positions as well as a skillset evolution for the remaining roles. Handling money proficiently is not the priority anymore, particularly in light of all the cash recyclers and dispensers that are available. People skills, conversationalists, digital savvy and other relationship management traits should drive today’s hiring. Note I didn’t use the term universal banker that gets bandied about as it oversimplifies a more complex skill set.
(3) Branded Environment
The branch represents your single best opportunity to differentiate your brand. Your brand experience should come to life in the space via a tangible manifestation of the emotional connections and drivers that define your brand personality and style. Consumers control today’s marketing and the best way to connect with them is via storytelling. The branch is a built-in canvas for rich storytelling. Your heritage, philosophical drivers, community outreach, and yes, products and benefits should be prominent and engaging for maximum effect. Don’t restrict your thinking and design to printed posters and counter cards. Today’s branch merchandising is robust, multidimensional and balanced between digital, paper-based and environmental casework.
(4) Shift to Advisory Services
Helping is the new selling and when your members need help, many still come into the branch. A recent TD Bank study revealed that 49% of those elusive millenials that everyone is chasing, look to the branch for advice on financial products and services. You want all you members to dwell, explore and engage with your staff and space so that you have the opportunity to deepen the relationship at every turn. A welcoming hospitality based environment focused on advice and information suggests a variety of seating options, semi-private meeting spaces, technology-equipped offices for video teleconferencing and an onsite lobby management system to orchestrate traffic flow and replace the “sign in sheet.” Rows of waiting chairs and coffee service areas are antiquated and better fit the image of the auto lube shop down the street.
(5) Technology as a Tool
This is probably the area that is both the least understood and the most underutilized in the quest to transform the branch. It’s not the panacea everyone is seeking to solve the digital divide perception that permeates the retail banking industry. Too many credit unions have chased the newest, shiniest electronic gadgets only to find that their particular member base won’t embrace them, or that they have been configured or located in a manner that isn’t useful. You can’t just place tablets on a counter without a strategy and plan for how they are to be used and managed by staff. If you’re not using them to sell, inform, simplify and speed applications, then you’re merely supplying an electronic toy that’s ignorable because your members most likely have their own device with them. Start with the question, “how can we help them navigate and simplify banking while they are in our branches”?
These are some of the first areas to explore as you build your future branch model. There are another five right behind these that can make the difference between “experimenting” and real performance increases. You’ll need to follow a proven best practice process to engage all the stakeholders in your organization in a strategic effort that has nothing to do, at least initially, with architectural design. With millions of dollars in brick and mortar at stake, the effort is best not left to chance or following the lead of others who may not have gone through this process.
Redwood Credit Union named Best in the Nation
ITS NOT EVERY DAY A CLIENT HIRES US TO LEAVE THEIR BRAND ALONE.
As you might imagine, this was a surprising request coming from Redwood Credit Union when they engaged our team in the fall of 2013.
Instead, this $2.4B credit union asked us to help distill their highly successful brand, succinctly documenting core strengths to ensure ongoing alignment with the market.
While the result raised a few eyebrows at first, in the end, the answer surprised no one. Love is what makes Redwood Credit Union unique. And we’re confident that the passion the organization feels for helping members succeed is what catapulted them to the top of Glatt Consulting’s recent Credit Union Industry HealthScore.
Congratulations to this outstanding organization and it’s very passionate staff.
““We didn’t look to rebrand … we were looking to articulate our brand,” said Brett Martinez, Redwood’s chief executive officer. “We knew we had a really strong brand with our membership growing.””
We’ll see you at the MAC Conference
The 2015 MAC Conference is coming up on May 27th in the innovation capital of America — San Francisco!
Weber Marketing Group’s Mark Weber is a keynote speaker:
Finding the Catalyst of Transformational Change
Join Mark on Thursday, May 28th at 9:00 AM and he explains how building a relevant brand is so much more than a great look and a few successful campaigns. He’ll discuss how to create a cultural revolution that will spark some serious results. You’ll learn:
- how organizations pivot to become more relevant
- how to harness unconventional R&D investments to spark results
- how to break through the bubble
Weber Marketing Group is also sponsoring an off-site tour and leading a culture workshop afterward:
Levi strauss & co. culture Tour
Levi Strauss & Co. is one of the world’s largest brand-name apparel marketers with sales in more than 100 countries. The company employs a staff of approximately 12,400 people worldwide, including approximately 1,500 people at its San Francisco, California headquarters. On Wednesday, May 27th at 1:00 PM join Weber Marketing Group’s Randy Schultz for a guided tour of the Levi’s headquarters. You’ll get an inside look at the Levi’s company culture and see how innovation is at the core of everything they do — from inventing the world’s first pair of blue jeans, to implementing cutting-edge design techniques, to developing new ways of working.
Speaking of blue jeans, how would you look in a new pair of Levi’s 501’s? During the culture workshop after the tour, Randy Schultz will select one lucky participant will win a Levi’s gift card. Don’t miss out!
Branch Makeover: Live from the Financial Brand Forum
Forum 2015 Branch Experience Makeover
Banks and credit unions around the world all want the answer to one burning question: “What should our branches be like in the future?” Everyone agrees the role of the branch and technology is evolving, but there is little clarity about how branch design should respond to these changes.
Weber Marketing Group and EHS Design recently had the opportunity to answer this question. As one of three design teams selected at the Financial Brand Forum, we were challenged with presenting a branch design concept to NYC-based Municipal Credit Union (MCU)—live on stage, in front of 900 conference attendees. This presented a terrific chance to share our perspective on innovation.
Introduction: brand video
Diving in, what first intrigued us about MCU is the amazing bond this 100-year-old credit union shares with its hardworking members. This demographically, geographically, and ethnically diverse group is united by a strong commitment to serve the 8.4 million people who live in New York City, and their membership in the credit union reflects their kinship. We quickly realized that this inherent authenticity and rich heritage could be reflected in a new brand design, one that helps link municipal workers to a new environment designed to deliver real guidance. We set out to identify a link to a unique space municipal workers would be proud to call their own.
Finding that big idea took us weeks. We didn’t want to design just one more nice-looking branch filled with cool technology — we wanted a visceral connection. MCU needed a bridge between past and future, worker and city, and a member’s current position and their future financial well-being.
The very crossroad designed, engineered, built, and now maintained for over 100 years by MCU members could be a powerful symbol to celebrate their own evolution. And, with a branch site planned for Staten Island, a neighborhood connected to not one but four landmark bridges, we had rich visuals to draw upon.
With our strategy outlined, we went to work designing a new branch experience that showcased MCU’s objectives. We identified three functional tactics to address these priorities:
- Design a prototype that demonstrates adaptability to a fast changing world of new technologies and touchpoints — without exceeding cost thresholds.
- Ensure the space is easy to navigate and promotes interactions that foster financial education.
- Tie space not just to technology, but also to the access, freedom and time savings that define mobility.
Creating a rich and connected user experience tied to relationship development, trusted advisors and tools meant clearly prioritizing zones within the new space. We sketched pathways designed to help define staff behavior, including spaces that would encourage engagement of visitors on the floor, rather than from behind a desk. We then rendered these ideas in 3D to help key decision makers visualize the relationship between training and adaptation and how this might impact the new environment and overall experience.
A century ago, ten Municipal workers joined together to help each other finance and save for the life they wanted to live. They built bridges and helped create a city that now defines America. 100 years later, we celebrate the next chapter by building a new bridge to guide 365,000 hardworking municipal employees and their families to financial well-being.
We’re thankful for the opportunity to serve the Municipal Credit Union team with a fresh new vision and excited about this admirable organization’s future.
You might also like…
Brand storytelling for New York’s municipal workers
Celebrate your members, you owe them everything.
When the Financial Brand Forum asked us to participate in their 2015 branch makeover for New York’s Municipal Credit Union, we said yes. This video is something we threw together as part of our presentation — a celebration of the members MCU serves. Check it out.
Brave brands take center stage
I’m used to brands chasing me. Like the maker of the sparkly shoes I abandoned in a cart, the one that stalks me as I move around the Internet. Reading an article, there they are. Checking out my friend’s vacation pictures? Sparkly shoes are winking in the sidebar, like little actors determined to audition for a role in my closet. Even the other pair of sparkly shoes, the ones I DID buy, are tailing me.
That’s the reality of the world we live in. Brands aren’t sitting back waiting to be discovered. They’re trying to get in front of us, working up a sweat as they audition for the spotlight in our heads.
But you know who doesn’t have to work so hard? You know who walks right up and takes the stage? The brand that bravely starts a conversation about something that matters.
Dove has been doing this for over a decade with Real Beauty, a campaign that started as a research project and ended up tapping into a deeper, more meaningful conversation about what it means to be beautiful. This brand was able to elevate itself with a message that doesn’t feel like advertising. Really, I don’t have the bandwidth to remember why their product will make me look softer and smoother than someone else’s product. But why my girlfriends, my mother, my co-workers, and I all feel we have to look softer and smoother? That’s a pretty interesting topic.
Sure, Dove’s parent, Unilever, is trying to sell products—many of which are decidedly not about beauty, real or otherwise (think Axe). Still, the Dove brand has captured my imagination as it tackles important conversations that span everything from body image and self esteem to mother daughter relationships and online bullying.
Starbucks tried to do this recently too, and I will admit— here, in print — that I admire them for it. Okay, so maybe the Race Together campaign was awkward and ill-conceived. It was also brave. The idea that this ubiquitous brand, on a national, maybe even a global level, could get us all talking about race relations? Well, that’s powerful stuff. I haven’t a clue how to go about starting this conversation myself — I am as awkward as the barista forced to write “Race Together” on my cup — but I feel more aware of a need to try. And that’s something.
Today, another brand walked boldly up and stood on the stage in my head. I’ve never heard of Axosoft, a software developer based in Scottsdale, AZ. But the idea that I’ve been reading the universal symbol for women on public bathrooms all wrong, my whole life, blows my mind. Of course. The outline that looks like a person in a dress is actually the backside of a fantastic cape-wearing female superhero. We just need to turn her around. I can’t wait to show this graphic to my daughters. Because lo and behold, it was NEVER a dress.
That this ties back to Axosoft’s Curator of Code, Tania Katan, and her vision of empowering women in technology is a huge bonus. That she designed this campaign to “shift perceptions and assumptions about women and the audacious, sensitive and powerful gestures they make every single day” is inspiring. That she managed to cut through the clutter and lead me to the Axosoft website to learn more about this company? Brilliant.
It’s not the brands chasing us with sparkly shoes that ultimately capture our attention. It’s the brands bravely donning the red cape to talk about something relevant and important that earn center stage.
Do I have to call it nepotism?
it was a good day at work.
I’ve written before about why I love producing radio. Now I can add one more reason to the list — a precocious, seven-year old, all-pink, all-attitude, talented little voice actress named Gretta. And if you can’t tell from the photos, she also happens to be my daughter.
Believe it or not, nepotism isn’t really my bag. I care too much about delivering a quality product to my clients to risk mucking it up with someone who can’t hack it. Especially if that someone shares my last name.
But with that said, I must admit, it was a great opportunity for me. After all, how many of us get a chance to work with our kids professionally? For me, this opportunity began with our great clients over at Redwood Credit Union.
For months, Weber Marketing Group has been working to help Redwood articulate its brand. And recently we helped them launch a new campaign that featured a radio spot centered around a dad teaching his daughter how to ride a bike.
Gretta was a natural choice for the part. Over the years, I’ve worked with kid actors on various projects, with mixed results. Honestly it can be tough. For one thing, kids go to school during the day. And kids don’t usually have talent agents, so finding them can be tricky. And finally, tweezing a good performance out of a kid requires rapport — which can be hard to build in a short recording session.
In Gretta’s case, we recorded some of the spot out front of our house. It’s a lot easier to make a kid sound like she’s riding a bike if she is actually riding a bike. Then we went to the studio to in-fill some lines. In the end, it’s hard to tell what’s a studio line and what came from the Streufert cul-de-sac.
Nepotism or not, this spot is going straight to the top of my Sentimental Favorites List.
