BRANDING INSIGHTS // CAMPAIGN DEVELOPMENT

San Diego-based California Coast Credit Union (“Cal Coast”) was looking to grow beyond their existing footprint, leaning into digital-only branchless banking to expand into other Southern California counties. They wanted to position themselves as an innovative digital-first banking partner and promote themselves as an engaged and important part of the SoCal community. But their ad agency and in-house creative teams just couldn’t crack the code creatively, stuck in a cliché of smiley stock images. So they turned to Grail. We immediately recognized the untapped branding asset right in their name. As a noun, “the coast” is the land along the ocean which, in Southern California, is emblematic of the sunny place the Credit Union calls home. Grail’s solution was a campaign themed “Coast Into…” – tapping into both of these meanings, while powerfully leveraging the word that’s central to California Coast Credit Union’s brand identity. Visually, the campaign was designed around a horizon line which brings together two images in a bold and distinctive way. And as a verb, “to coast” conveys the idea of effortless and friction-free movement. A sense of freedom and a feeling of being worry-free. In other words, exactly what you want from a digital-first banking experience.