Case studyPrincipality Building Society

Principality Building Society, brand transformation.

In the competitive financial services market, if you’re not relevant, you may as well not exist. How do you compete against newer, innovative competitors? You give your brand a purpose, and focus on building prosperity your customers.

A new organisational positioning that would turn Principality into a brand with a purpose was the answer. With its average customer pushing 60, Principality had to become attractive and relevant to new, savvier consumers, without alienating existing members. We re-invented them as a building society that gets its modern customer. By encapsulating the new proposition into a strapline that could be used externally and internally, we brought Principality ‘home’.

In the last five years, we’ve created a fresh new look and feel, making sure that home was at the heart of everything we did. From a new logo to detailed brand guidelines, new tone of voice, branch interior design, product literature, regular above, through and below the line integrated campaigns and much more besides.

Client

Principality Building Society

Duration

6 year ongoing programme

Teams

Strategy, Creative, Digital, Client Services

The organising thought acts as an internal motivation for staff as well as an external positioning statement.

Where Home Matters

A new logo combines the concept of mutuality with a Celtic-inspired knot. The colours reflect Principality’s strong roots in the Welsh community.

A comprehensive, ownable suite of brand assets and guidelines to manage every asset of the brand ensure a consistent delivery of the brand story across every customer touchpoint.

A new branch design, bringing a ‘home from home’ to Principality’s members, has been rolled out across all their branches.

Designed around face-to-face interaction, Principality’s branches buck the trend of banks taking their service in an entirely remote direction.

A segmented approach was taken with the branch roll-out, prioritising branches with strong growth potential in urban areas.

One integrated campaign timed with the rugby Autumn Internationals leveraged sponsorship of Principality Stadium to bring rewards home to members.

None of this matters unless colleagues are on side with the brand message. A year long brand ambassador programme saw people from across the business inducted into the ‘Home Team’ – tasked with embedding the brand amongst their colleagues, work spaces and customers.

Principality branch

We worked really closely on the new brand and spent hours together refining and crafting. The process felt really collaborative and we enjoyed some very fun and exciting sessions.

Anne-Marie Koukourava
Marketing Director, Principality Building Society