WESTERN PAYMENTS ALLIANCE: brand development
Brand Identity | Marketing and Educational Materials | Symposium Marketing
Background
The Western Payments Alliance, one of the nation's regional financial trade association dating back to 1876, is one of the nation's largest regional payments associations that, together with the Electronic Payments Association serve as rule-makers for the electronic payments network.
Challenge
WesPay came to Kirshenbaum Communications shortly after it completed a merger and realized it faced rapidly changing market conditions that impacted its ability to work effectively. A non-profit organization, WesPay depended
on dues from its financial institution members but continuing mergers in the industry have reduced WesPay's member tally even as its market share grew. WesPay needed to reposition itself to appeal to smaller financial institutions as well as to non-financial organizations, whom they wished to attract as associate members, all without diluting its mission.
Solution
After conducting a comprehensive brand and positioning assessment, we performed a complete brand overhaul. During a strategic positioning and messaging workshop with senior management, we developed recommendations for their positioning and brand identity, as well as their marketing and member communications, programs.
We then put those recommendations into action by creating a new sophisticated mark that would speak not only to the stability and experience represented by the organization but also to its innovative thinking and leadership within the industry, as it works toward improved practice and technological standards within the industry, benefiting its members as well as businesses and consumers at all levels.
First we redesigned the logo to reflect the power of the merged organization. The mark's intersecting arrows reflect strength, leadership and energized relationships‹central organizational values articulated in our original positioning document.
The new logo first appeared publicly on an ambitious new communications tool, WesPay's first creatively concepted and designed annual report. Titled Strength in Numbers, the report touted WesPay's financial and organizational strength in a sophisticated and professional format that acts both as a financial disclosure and as a marketing tool to prospective new members.
To complete the corporate communications initiative, we next developed an attractive business system, along with specific identity-use guidelines so that WesPay can manage the creation of new sell sheets and smaller graphics projects in-house. A professional corporate folder and branded masthead sheets round out the system, allowing WesPay's senior management to customize sales presentations on short notice when visiting member prospects.