Digitalization has also changed the market for financial services: Personal contact between customer and bank is happening less and less, and the relationship between personal advisor and business or private customer that is so important is easily lost. This is a development that offers opportunities if a bank has a local presence – and communicates this clearly! At least this is the goal of Volksbank Köln Bonn.

The Volksbank Köln Bonn aims to reposition its brand. The aim is to communicate the bank’s regional strength in a strategically sound manner. To this end, B+D Communications is first commissioned to survey the current positioning and communications and evaluate them in terms of the cooperative bank’s target image. The agency conducts numerous interviews with the board of directors, senior staff, business and private customers. The subsequent GAP analysis then reveals the gaps between self-image and external image, which are to be closed by repositioning the brand and a new advertising campaign, off- and online.

Building on the roof brand campaign of the Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken, Volksbank is sharpening its positioning, changing its claim and logo icon: “Von Herzen rheinisch” is accompanied by a heart in Volksbank’s familiar colors of orange and blue.

With the new advertising campaign, Volksbank Köln Bonn shows itself emotional, customer-oriented, humorous and Rhineland. It does completely without stock material and photo models. It is employees from different areas of the cooperative bank who enthusiastically participated in the campaign production as brand ambassadors. Customers discover their regional customer advisor, the nice advisor from next door, but also the expert from the digitalization team and the trainee on posters, ads and posts in social media.

At first glance, the motifs work with negative-seeming nicknames that attract attention. The negative is directly resolved and explained in the subline. With a wink and especially for “Immis” (people who have moved to the region), the Rhenish expression is also translated with phonetic transcription and clarified in terms of content. For example, the “Muuzepuckel” is only satisfied when he has “helped start-ups get good financing,” the “Wibbelstätz” can’t stop looking for ever-new digital solutions, and the “Sabbelschnüss” always has a kind word for her customers.

The campaign of Volksbank Köln Bonn is designed cross-medially and is played out in regional print and online media, OOH, in social media and in the branches of the cooperative bank. Due to the integration of employees, it is also expected to have a positive impact on the bank’s employer brand.

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