Sign of the times: a bank branding firm merges with a digital marketing agency.

True to their belief that the bank brand today is primarily digital, Jeff Stephens and Cameron Madill announced recently that they will merge their two companies: one, a bank branding company; the other, a digital marketing/website redesign firm.

The two companies are Creative Brand Communications (CBC) and PixelSpoke, both of Portland, Ore. The new entity will use the PixelSpoke name.

Stephens founded CBC in 2003 after working as a marketing project manager at Umpqua Bank in Portland, Ore. "Working at Umpqua helped me to see how much opportunity there was for banks to do a better job with their marketing and branding, and I felt it was an entrepreneurial opportunity for me," he says.

CBC has worked with community financial institutions--community banks, credit unions and community development financial institutions (CDFIs)--all over North America and beyond. It has done a wide variety of full-service marketing and branding...