Unitus is a mission-driven community credit union with an 82-year history as the greater Portland Area’s welcoming and compassionate alternative banking solution, consisting of professional, accountable teammates tirelessly committed to helping their members achieve their version of financial success. Our team was charged with helping Unitus articulate this community value and create the positioning language that emotionally connects with prospective members.
Through our Challenger Brand Marketing® approach, we led the Unitus leadership team through a comprehensive discovery process that resulted in new branding language that better told the Unitus story, placing a priority on the member and the community. We knew that success would come when prospective members recognized the Unitus brand as the community’s most respected and empathetic team of local financial service providers and when prospects embraced the comfort and confidence associated with joining an organization genuinely dedicated to their individual success. People needed to know what Unitus means and stands for. We learned that Unitus evokes emotion, finds harmony and builds partnerships to improve the quality of life for their members and their community. Their mission is: Together we inspire hope by navigating through life’s defining moments.
We extracted the essence of the organization – Our commitment to member happiness starts with you and ends with us. – and led us to the new tagline that drives the brand: You. Us. Unitus. Of course, this also helps the community understand what Unitus stands for and why prospective members would want to join the Unitus community. Once the language was firmed up, we needed to bring the Unitus positioning to life through a new brand identity. Our team created a new logo that used regional colors and a “huddle” themed icon to represent diversity, equity and inclusion while cleverly integrating the tagline into the wordmark. Unitus marketing is now in a healthy place. It’s indeed a sunny new day at Unitus.
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