Sometimes branding is aimed at the people who work there…

Home Bank have always been a company who wore their values on their sleeves, they had just never made them official and now that they operate across two States, it was time. Of course they did it in typical Home Bank style – with a genuine and fun approach!

I worked with Home Bank on defining, describing, and visualizing their values; to do this we went to the people who worked for the bank… and we listened. They told us who they were, and we believed them. We rolled out the official values at events where the top executives both cooked and served delicious food to their staff – showing is always better than telling!

Although the values remained constant we added a comment in parenthesis under each value so they could be explained, and we could have a little (and by a little, I mean quite a bit) of fun.

Posters of the values were placed in every break room, and changed with the seasons, for holidays and at random times. This meant they were read, and became to be loved by staff. (So many companies just list the values on a wall somewhere and never mention them again.) Stickers were also placed in bathrooms, on hand dryers, and in other places that you would least expect them.

On every employees desk sits a mini white-board that has a wooden base engraved with the values. They are used for sharing thoughts, and for leaving messages for others, and even for company-wide contests. It’s so much fun to see them as you walk through any Home Bank branch.

The best part of this project for me is that since working with them, Home Bank have kept these fun values things going. My aim with every client is that I get to walk away and they continue the work, and make it better. This makes me smile.

“Collaborating with Aileen on our internal branding project was a major key to its success. Aileen brought color and warmth to our company values messaging and gave us tools to keep it all consistent in design and tone, across multiple uses. And, of course, she injected humor and whimsy into the copy and design – which you don’t find every day at financial institutions. As it turns out, those touches are the very things that keep our values statements fresh and relevant to staff.

Aileen took our core concepts and showed us how to expand their uses to unexpected places – from bathroom mirrors to frisbees to carvings in wood. In response, our staff has embraced our messaging, and they use the values statements on their own – in internal emails, intranet posts and on drawings on their whiteboards. It’s been a pleasure to see these concepts take on a life of their own, and we’re confident that Aileen’s work will be part of our company image for years to come.”

Susan Allardyce
Assistant Vice President | Marketing Specialist

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