Legacy Bank of Texas had abandoned its Texas heritage in order to position itself as a high technology, retail bank. This may have been a good choice for the late 1990s in Plano, Texas. But as a long-term position it failed to establish differential advantage for the bank brand. By the time Gibbons Peck started working with the bank, they were in great need of a branding agency that understands banks.

The culture, history, and physical facilities of LegacyTexas Bank (the new name) screamed "private and commercial banking." Also, in the tidal wave of new competition in North Texas, LegacyTexas was one of the few that could claim an authentic Texas heritage. Bank branding best practices pointed toward leveraging that authentic position. "A Wide Open Range of Possibilities."

Our community bank branding set out to recapture the optimism and rugged sophistication of North Texas-positioning LegacyTexas as a genuine Texas brand bank. The rugged color palette is used to identify the business groups. And all materials reflect a hand-tooled leather look. Brand typography combines classic serif and sans serif fonts. The logo is designed to look like a cattle brand. And for the photography, we worked with well-known rodeo shooter, Jamie Williams. Together, it all screams, "We're from Texas, and we're able and willing to help take you where you want to go."

Because the brand is so "relationship oriented," we replaced an 18± piece collateral program with just four pieces-one for each type of relationship. Fewer pieces made it possible to make each collateral piece more substantial. By creating insert shells for information that changes frequently, such as rates, we extended the life of the investment.

The advertising combines the idea of Texas ruggedness with portraying high-profile relationships. Although Gibbons Peck is a South Carolina branding agency, we demonstrated with Legacy Texas that we are a branding agency that understands banks.