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Bank Center First Gets a New Suit

Banking is a very competitive field so keeping an updated image is important. Banks want to project stability as well as appeal to new clients. Bank Center First wanted a new look while not turning off their current clients.

"We wanted the name to personify stability and that's very important in banking and you want the name out there that the customer will remember and identify with and I think we have done that," says Myron Pfeifle, Bank Center First President. The bank had been through a name change and a logo change and wanted to freshen their image. To create that new look they turned to Kranzler Kingsley Communications in Bismarck.

Before developing the new look Kranzler Kingsley first did research to find out what people's attitudes were toward the banking industry. "Because you can start out with a lot of blue sky, 'Jeez, I hope people like it,' but if you start out having some good, solid knowledge about what the possible customer base is thinking, what they're looking for in a bank," says LaRoy Kingsley.

Pfeifle was happy with the research results. "That has determined that our bank has been the friendliest bank in town," he says.

"If you're constantly hearing what they want is strong, stable, big, large, then that's probably the image you're looking for. If you're constantly hearing that they want friendly, then that's probably the image that you're going to want to work towards," Kingsley says.

Kranzler Kingsley's research showed the bank was doing great with seniors and younger people but the national banks were leading in the group in-between. "We identified an area that you think might be a weakness but it's actually an opportunity." Kingsley says. "There's an area that the national chain banks were dominated in. they were very strong in people 35-54 years in age and it was skewed female. Well now they've caught up. We've seen huge erosion in market share from the major chain banks to the independent community banks in this market. They're all growing and the majors are losing market share. We wanted to make sure that we could take advantage of that erosion."

Pfeifle says going after that 35-54 year old group is one of the reasons that his bank is looking at new technology and just completed updating a new computer system. "People want faster service and they want the ability to sit down at their desk at home and do their banking so you think home banking, Internet banking is something that everybody is expecting their bank to have," he says.