Better. Together.
SWBC (Southwest Business Corporation) is a diversified financial services company providing insurance, mortgage and investment services and has a strong history and excellent brand recognition within the business categories that they serve. SWBC Payments, part of the SWBC Financial Institutions Group, has always held a strong foothold with Credit Unions by enabling them to deliver a frictionless auto loan payment experience to their members, but also saw the opportunity to position themselves for growth across other vertical markets and to compete more broadly with a growing list of Fintech Payments providers. To effectively leverage the strengths of SWBC while infusing some of the more timely and relevant values that SWBC Payments has to offer it was agreed that a separate sub-branded company with a strong SWBC affiliation would create the best opportunity to position for long-term success in a highly tech-forward, innovative, dynamic and fast-paced payments marketplace.
Stackpole named the new SWBC Company “SWIVEL” to represent the many rails and routes that money and data can move and to be representative of a company that is fresh and agile. The SWIVEL logo and corporate identity is comprised of an integrated word mark and “I” symbol and paired with an SWBC endorsement. Together, these elements from the Swivel logo lockup.
INDUSTRY
Financial Services
FinTech
Payments
Technology
OUR ROLE
- Brand Positioning
- Branding Guidelines
- Concept Development
- Digital Advertising
- Digital Campaign
- Logo & Identity Development
- Market Research/Competitive Analysis
- Media Strategy
- Social Media Campaign
- Strategic Planning
- Video Production
Stackpole worked with the SWBC Payments marketing team to identify where SWBC Payments differed from their parent company and which differentiators and product offerings would resonate with their existing and future audiences. We accomplished this by developing buyer personas, conducting in-depth research into the payments market, and developing a brand messaging platform that was unique to Payments. The output from this strategy directed the creation of a forward-thinking, visually exciting brand and logo to launch the company into new verticals in a way that made them easily identifiable as a payments company, while creating strong differentiation from their competitors.
The work included brand discovery, brand messaging, brand positioning, logo development, visual identity system, corporate standards guidelines along with website content writing and design consulting — all followed in short order by a launch campaign to both internal and external audiences. The output of this work enabled the internal SWBC Payments team (now SWIVEL) to gain internal buy-in and generate excitement around this new brand, which in turn, provided some lift to the recruitment process.
Brand Guidelines
By positioning SWIVEL as a stand-alone company we were able to create brand clarity around the payments offering and compete more effectively in a highly cluttered and dynamic marketplace. Utilizing the SWIVEL brand name to represent an “action” in all outbound ads contributed to the eye-catching, plain-speak nature of the ads that enabled them to stand out from the competitive set. This is the first successful brand extension for SWBC, a nearly 50-year-old company.
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