Scale Bank rebrand a necessary, timely differentiator

A successful brand communicates a lot. It ties your name to your products. It reveals your culture. And, it secures your identity in the marketplace. In that context, Edina, Minn.-based Fidelity Bank knew it had problems. ."We had always felt that the Fidelity brand would be nothing we could own for ourselves," said Todd Williams, president and CEO of Scale Bank, formerly Fidelity Bank. "We were spending time actually explaining what we weren't and not what we are.".What the bank was not was a division of Fidelity Investments, the brokerage and investment giant based in Pennsylvania. Yet whenever Williams or his colleagues talked about where they worked, people's thoughts immediately jumped to 401(k)s. .The confusion was ongoing and impacted not only how the bank was seen by prospective customers, but also prospective employees. Even regulators turned up at the Edina offices of Fidelity Investments when they had appointments at the bank, Williams said..The path to their September 2023 rebrand was also motivated by a desire to express a modern image. There's a fine line between being lauded as "stable and consistent," and being called an "old shoe." Williams had heard customers describe Fidelity Bank using all of these modifiers. .One of the challenges was creating a brand that could encompass the bank's diverse product and service offerings. The commercial bank that has operated in the Twin Cities southern suburbs since 1970 has a significant mortgage warehouse lending division and a factoring business (Scale Funding, known before the rebrand as TCI Business Capital), both with national footprints. ."It's a really impressive organization," said Trudy Marshall, the bank's fractional marketing director. "It just wasn't the story being told adequately as Fidelity Bank.".The process to rebrand took a bit longer than one year, Marshall said. "We started with our team members, making sure that when we developed this value proposition of who we are, we made sure everybody was on board," she said. The new brand had to be something everyone could live up to..The marketing team also conducted research with existing clients, but also a large sampling of small- to medium-sized businesses that were not clients. "We asked what they would want from their bank," Marshall explained. "We found technology was important, but it was not everything. It was really the relationship piece. And that's what we did really well."."We're probably not the leading technology bank in the Twin Cities," Williams admitted. "But we weren't going to worry about that. We were going to worry more about whether or not our name and our brand reflected who we are and whether that was important to not only our clients, but to our prospective clients.".Armed with research data, Williams approached the board to get their blessing on a name change. With employees and board members alike, there was acceptance to change from the beginning, Williams said. But a change to what? "I think we started with six or eight names," Williams said, "and then whittled it to two.".Settling on Scale Bank gave them all that they wanted. "We've had this nice foundation, but we're on this journey of transformation like all of our clients," Williams said. "This is just one more chapter in Fidelity. We're really looking at scaling our business, and that's very consistent with what our clients look to do every day.".Rebranding challenges included the sheer number of bank names that already existed, having the ability to find an available URL they could afford, getting approval to use the DOT BANK extension, and having the ability to trademark the name. (Trademark approval was pending as this magazine went to publication.) Also, there was the not insignificant task of completely rebuilding the bank's website. To help manage the process, the bank hired a boutique marketing agency based in New York..As they inched toward the big reveal, the bank hosted an event with roughly 350 customers. "People wanted to know 'why?'" Williams said. If the name change didn't make sense at first, it did once it was explained: "Scale means growth; it's a verb," Williams told people. "And they understood that it's every business owner's objective to get to the next level.".Even though people had been told repeatedly that change was coming, it was during the face-to-face conversations at that celebration when the new name clicked in people's minds, Williams explained. .Acceptance grew through encounters with 15-second commercial spots on CNBC and targeted buys on several streaming services, along with electronic billboard ads placed along the most heavily trafficked highways in the Twin Cities. People noticed, and their feedback included: "Hey, you're really going to the next level as an organization;" or "You guys are out there; things must be really happening there.".A favorite comment for Williams came from a second-generation business owner in his 30s, who said he was rethinking a move away from Fidelity, which he had considered "his father's bank." With the rebrand, Scale Bank seemed to be more on the cutting edge of things, he told Williams. ."This was an inside-out branding," Williams said. "The culture was here. What it did is it illuminated that culture and really made it apparent; there's more alignment in what our brand is and what we represent.".For Williams, who became bank CEO at the beginning of 2022, the rebrand isn't about putting his personal mark on the institution as its leader. "In some sense, I feel like it's just a logical evolution of what we're doing," he said. "I'm just very fortunate to have the support of the board and the owners to make something happen."."I am proud of it," Williams said, "but I wouldn't say it was a mark for me. It's a mark for us."