CREATING A UNIQUE IMAGE ACROSS DIVERSE TARGETS

Stanford Federal Credit Union wanted to accelerate growth but was faced with some unique challenges. They served two very diverse audiences: on one end were Gen Z Stanford students with limited financial resources and knowledge; and on the other end were financially sophisticated high-wealth professionals in the Silicon Valley and beyond. SFCU also needed to overcome the perceived barrier that only students, alumni or University employees could open an account when, in fact, their charter allowed them to serve the broader San Francisco Bay Area. Our starting point was conducting research to uncover consumer insights, as well as a series of interviews with SFCU leadership and employees at all levels of the organization. The research uncovered a mindset shared by students and multi-millionaires alike: to succeed in all their endeavors. And the SFCU interviews revealed a top-down ethos of saying “yes” to their members’ needs and requests. Armed with these insights, we created the “YES to your success.” campaign. But  we didn’t stop there. Because it was dated and difficult to reproduce, we redesigned their logo creating a cleaner, more modern and distinct look that reinforces Stanford’s status as a credit union by cleverly incorporating an interlocking ‘C’ and ‘U’ into the design of the ‘S’ brand mark.