Designing a unique website: in a commoditized industry, bank websites sometimes look and feel the same. Lewis & Clark Bank, Oregon, wants its website to express its distinctive culture and brand.

• Author: Albro, Walt
• Position: Lewis & Clark Bank - Company overview

HOW IMPORTANT IS CULTURE AND BRAND TO A WEBSITE DESIGN?

It's critical, in the view of the Lewis & Clark Bank (assets: $130 million), Oregon City, Oregon. As a de novo bank founded in December 2006, Lewis & Clark created its first website in a rush, upon opening its doors and before it had a chance to fully clarify its corporate culture and brand. The bank had still not made a formulation three years later when it attempted a redesign. The redesign posed so many difficulties and challenges that the bank realized that it would have to postpone the project for 12 months while it worked on more fully defining the culture/brand.

Once the missing elements were in place in 2010, the bank revived the design project and it went off smoothly. Five years later, the bank wanted to upgrade the website and make it responsive to mobile devices. In the process, it did a second redesign, which also was a breeze compared to the 2009 attempt because the culture and brand had been more thoroughly articulated.

"Without having clear definitions of culture and brand, neither of these redesigns would have been successful," notes Colby Schlicker, CFMP, marketing director.

Targets unique customers

Lewis & Clark was founded as a commercial bank focused on small-business lending. It has 23 employees. The main location is in suburban Portland. Two other offices are located in central and southern Oregon. The bank targets clients with unique business models that are slightly outside of the box compared with those of more typical borrowers--and thus these borrowers are in greater need of a trusted financial adviser. "We find that unique customers tend to be good borrowers," Schlicker observes.

The founders, Jeff Sumpter and Trey Maust, co-presidents and CEOs, have their names prominently displayed at the top of the second redesigned home page, which was launched in February 2015. This makes sense since the bank promotes itself as being approachable and personal--in such a way that all customers have an opportunity get acquainted with the bank's top officers.

The bank believes in the importance of marketing and aims to communicate a unified and integrated corporate culture, brand and positioning. Since Lewis & Clark was itself a start-up business only eight years ago, it projects an image as a sympathetic and understanding partner for other entrepreneurs.

When the bank launched, its first priority was to get the business up and running. The original website design was...