Mapping the brand: how State Bank, Atlanta, used a 'strategic brand road map' to enable executives to envision how they wanted their brand to evolve.

• Author: Pannell, Laurie Campbell
• Position: State Bank & Trust Co.

THE INPUT OF BANK EXECUTIVES IS CRITICAL TO A BRAND'S SUCCESS. They can affect both employee and community attitudes toward the brand. Unfortunately, top managers are often busy with other issues and are sometimes detached from both brand and marketing strategy.

Recently, executives for a Georgia bank went through a two-hour exercise that was designed to involve the executives more directly as participants in the evolution of the brand.

The process, called "strategic brand mapping," was intended to both chronicle the history of the brand and also to help brand evolution. It was hoped that the exercise would help the bank to avoid costly brand "detours" and to ensure that the brand stayed on a successful track.

Here's the story of how the bank went about creating and using a brand road map.

A newly organized bank

State Bank in Atlanta, Ga., was formed in the height of the recession--and in one of the states hardest hit by bank closures. It was brought together by the purchase of six bank subsidiaries totaling assets of $2.8 billion.

The new bank hit the ground running with a brand launch that blanketed its communities with visibility and name recognition. The brand campaign was designed to restore confidence in a demoralized market. Once initial growing pains were behind, the bank turned its eyes on innovating and setting new benchmarks. Within a few years, State Bank became the number one performing bank in the country in 2011, according to Bank Director magazine.

State Bank's brand is simple and straightforward: It is built around the idea of being a bank that can "absolutely" make it happen.

With its early success, the bank wanted to keep the momentum of the new brand going. A bank's brand is never stagnant; it is as alive and ever changing as the bank itself--and never more so than with a new bank.

The bank consulted with its marketing agency partner to establish a process for maximizing brand momentum. The goal was to do a brand review through the use of a visual device that was both interactive and panoramic.

After some thought, the agency came up with the idea of a "strategic brand road map." A meeting with bank executives was scheduled and the agency created a large banner (3 feet high and 8 feet long), printed on durable paper, that outlined brand strategy with "before" and "after" snapshots of the brand's launch and results.

Included were images of promotional campaigns, and offline and online strategies. The banner had blank space...