GOAL
Establish new marketing campaign

AUDIENCE
Milford citizens
Area customer prospects

CHALLENGE
A true "David" up against extra large "Goliaths"

EDGE
The only hometown bank
Turmoil from bank mergers

IDEA
Own Milford
Neighborly service
Support Milford

DELIVERY
Print ads
Events
Website
Brochures
Direct mail
PR
Promotions
and more.

When the hometown bank came to us for a new marketing strategy, the path was obvious to us. You are THE Milford Bank. No matter what, no other bank can be that. And in this time of bank mergers, name changes and acquisitions, being the original hometown bank should really count for something. People are looking for stability. They long for old fashioned service. They take pride in their town. Our conclusion: We want to own Milford.

The Milford Bank's Signature Ad Click here for copy.

Influential Ideas

Bank on Milford is a wonderful play on words. It invokes community pride, commitment to the future and the old fashioned value of having a bank your town can claim as its own.

We promoted the concept through advertising and promotion that tied the bank tightly to its home community. We assisted in creating and embellishing community events. Today The Milford Bank "owns" several signature events in town.

We assisted in creating a website that clearly has two functions. One side of the website provides information you'd expect about the bank and its products. The other side is devoted to the community. All manner of local information and resources are posted there: local weather, community calendar, links to area entertainment, homework helper, cool links and more.

The stone tower shown in the above ad is The City of Milford icon. Part of "Founder's Bridge" it is featured a hundred ways in town. The local newspaper uses the tower to mark its Milford edition. A local shop sells images of the tower on blankets, coffee mugs, Christmas ornaments and more. Several hometown organizations feature the tower on their letterhead.

We turned it into a bank.

Then through a campaign approach of repeated exposures, we turned the hand, coin and tower into an icon for The Milford Bank.

Follow this link to read the text of the ad which encapsulates our marketing strategy for the campaign.

After a while we expanded the concept to other bank marketing. Our Certificate of Deposit ads were headlined, "Bank on Yourself." Mortgage ads showed the hand depositing a coin into the roof of your home. Home equity loan ads showed the hand shaking money back out.

When a new debit card was introduced, it featured the "Bank on Milford" icon. Then we created ads showing the card being inserted into the tower which now sported a gas pump style card reader. Follow this link for artwork.

Influential Results

The "Bank on Milford" campaign ran for six years. It gained strong recognition among target audiences. The bank grew to be Influential Communications' largest account. We serve in a variety of capacities, including: marketing consulting, advertising creation and placement, public relations, website support and more.

While many people at the bank worked very hard to make it happen, we do believe our marketing efforts on the bank's behalf played some part in taking the bank from a $129 million to a $226 million institution. The bank has been the number one Milford mortgage lender for the past four years.

This campaign was written up in Business New Haven as one of the innovative campaigns in 2003: http://www.conntact.com/archive_index/archive_pages/4065_Business_New_Haven.html 

More Samples