Grady Britton
First Interstate Bank
One brand. Eight new states. More than 20 different markets.
One brand entering more than 20 markets shouldn't sound exactly the same everywhere.
First Interstate Bank's acquisition of Great Western Bank expanded the brand into 8 new states and more than 20 markets. The business needed a consistent parent brand while entering communities with very different demographics, competitive environments, and customer needs.
The Challenge
Consistency does not require sameness. The brand could remain recognizable while the emphasis, products, channels, and creative reflected the people in each market.
The Insight
Build a market-level intelligence system that made localization scalable instead of rebuilding the strategy market by market.
The Strategy
As Account Supervisor at Grady Britton, I led the agency relationship for First Interstate Bank, the agency's highest-billing client, and directed integrated strategy and execution across creative, digital, media, and production.
My Role
I built a demographics database covering the acquired markets and used it to identify dominant and priority audiences, including tribal reservation communities and markets with large Hispanic populations. We matched creative and messaging to those audiences and created a messaging matrix that helped multiple financial products enter new markets without fragmenting the parent brand.
What We Built
The system supported the launch of First Interstate Bank across 8 new states and 20+ markets and gave the team a repeatable way to balance enterprise brand consistency with local relevance.
The Result
