Case Study: Market, Audience and Design Research for Everence Credit Union

Case Study: Market, Audience and Design Research for Everence Credit Union

Strategy: Assist a credit union through research and marketing to enter into the Philadelphia market.

Everence Credit Union is a 70 year old full-service financial institution based in Elkhart, Indiana and Lancaster, Pennsylvania with branches on the east cost and midwestern United States. They help individuals, organizations and congregations integrate finances with their faith. According to their 2017 annual report, they have assets just over $117 million dollars and they offer the typical banking services. The closest bank branch is Souderton, Pennsylvania.

Everence is planning to open a branch in 2019 in a minority working class neighborhood in Philadelphia. Since their local team does not have a brand strategist, I was contacted because of my knowledge of Philadelphia, my social science research abilities and my experience as graphic designer. I traveled to their headquarters in Elkhart to listen to a variety of Everence staff articulate their thoughts about this initiative over a 2-day period. Over the course of 3 months, I conducted research using books, academic journals, conversations and articles . (I recommend  a book by Mehrsa Baradaran titled The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap.) I also examined what other bank branches were doing to reach the same target market.

The Creative Brief (CB) I produced details how they should approach this new market. Since Everence is an established brand, I was provided with their branch development plan, corporate marketing plan and visual branding guidelines. This enabled me to look that their unique value proposition (UVP), determine how it integrates with this new initiative, develop strategies that compliments it and add some new ideas.

The Creative Brief consists of:

  • SWOT analysis
  • Ethnic, cultural and neighborhood history
  • Competition
  • Assessment
  • Demographics (ethnic, cultural and neighborhood)
  • Psychographics (ethnic, cultural and neighborhood)
  • Value Proposition
  • Design Research
  • Brand Strategies
  • Brand Strategy Applications
  • Brand Touchpoints
  • Brand Personality
  • Brand Voice
  • Advertising Examples

Because of the confidentiality and a non-disclosure agreement, I cannot post any of the information. However, you can view the advertising examples I created to express their brand strategies for this initiative.

Deliverables
Creative Brief