When your company’s brand positioning is fuzzy, your messages are misaligned, or your identity is inconsistent, you can’t scale. An insightful brand strategy closes these gaps with clarity and consistency. The resulting alignment creates momentum and drives growth.
This article explains what a strategic financial services branding agency is and how it can help you close the gap between brand and performance marketing by articulating your value across audiences and channels.
Why Financial Services Branding Deserves a Strategy, Not Just a Style Guide
When your brand lacks clarity, people fill in the blanks with assumptions. Instead of seeing what sets you apart, they lump you in with everyone else. The result? Price-based comparisons, stalled growth, and a widening gap between your true value and how the market perceives you. And these gaps affect internal members of your team, along with external customers and partners. The question is, how can you clearly and consistently communicate your full value?
FirstPurpose Wealth faced those kinds of questions when they came to Backstory. Back then, the firm was operating under an outdated brand name, LJ Cooper, which reflected the names of the original partners of the firm. Their clients often asked, “When can I talk to LJ?”—only to feel disappointed when they discovered those folks were no longer with the firm. The new partnership group at the firm, along with its next generation of financial advisors, wanted to feel part of something bigger than themselves, something they could call their own. They also wanted a name that suggests what they do and what they value. These disconnects left the brand feeling outdated and took away from the talented team delivering great results today.
That’s the challenge FirstPurpose Wealth brought to us. Still operating under their previous name, LJ Cooper, their clients would ask, “When can I talk to LJ?”—only to be disappointed when they learned the partners behind those initials had left years earlier. Meanwhile, the next generation of advisors wanted to belong to a brand they could believe in and build upon. The disconnect left the firm looking dated and feeling out of step with the exceptional team driving results today.
Guiding LJ Cooper through our insight-driven brand strategy and story development process clarified the firm’s purpose—to help people find and fund their purpose—and inspired a new company name, FirstPurpose Wealth. It also created a clear, consistent messaging framework and brand narrative that inspired internal team members and resonated with clients. The result was a stronger identity, a unified team, and a brand that opened doors instead of closing them.
If your firm sounds like everyone else, and if your website is filled with vague promises and buzzwords, and your team is telling different versions of your story, it’s time for a brand reset.
What to Look for in a Strategic Financial Services Branding Agency
Engaging a strategic financial services branding agency goes far beyond designing a logo. The right partner takes time to understand you, your business, and your customers. Through in-depth internal and external interviews, they uncover insights that set you apart and cut through market noise. They’ll also conduct a comprehensive brand assessment and audit to understand how you’re currently communicating your value in context of the competitive landscape.
They take a structured approach to building a strong brand foundation that clearly and consistently communicates who you are, what you do, and why it matters at a company level:
- Brand Purpose: The difference you make beyond making money.
- Brand Position: What your brand wants to be known for.
- Brand Promise: The overarching value you deliver to your customers.
- Brand Pillars: Your five biggest differentiators and benefits.
- Brand Personality: How your brand should look, sound and feel.
Everything that follows builds on this strong foundation, including your marketing messaging, visual brand identity (logo), and customer experience design. Aligning these elements builds momentum through better connections and conversions with customers, driving profitable growth and multiplying the value of your enterprise.
Building a Valuable Brand is a Financial Asset
Articulating a compelling purpose and delivering on a meaningful brand promise are foundational to building a strong financial services brand—especially when your offerings are intangible. Here are a few examples in practice:
HUB International (formerly Spectra Benefits)
As a successful employee benefits and retirement services provider, Spectra Benefits had built a strong business—but its brand positioning wasn’t fully communicating the firm’s value. President and CEO Brent Bennett asked us to partner with his young marketing leader to clarify Spectra’s value proposition, differentiate it from competitors, and strengthen its narrative ahead of acquisition by HUB International. The result was a distinctive brand story—and the confidence and skills their team needed to bring it to life. As Brent said, “Jed truly taught us how to fish… It’s one of the best investments I’ve made in our company to date.”
TAB Bank
From installing ATMs at Flying J truck stops early on to pioneering high-touch, digital-only banking services today, TAB Bank has consistently focused on delivering a value-added customer experience. Working with Curt Queyrouze, president and CEO, and his executive team, we helped TAB claim its birthright as a digital native bank by articulating a purpose built on the concept of providing more access to financial services for more people. The brand foundation and narrative we built together resonated with leaders, employees and customers, and positioned TAB for more upside.
Tanner Co
Tanner Co. had built a strong reputation over 75 years, but expanding into advisory services and facing competition from the Big Four and local firms made a brand refresh essential. We repositioned Tanner as Utah’s premier independent public accounting firm, backed by a new brand promise, “Right Answers, Right Here,” and a wisdom-inspired Owl mascot logo that set the firm apart. The result was a brand that stands out, commands a premium, and continues to scale. As Managing Partner Jeff Bickel put it: “Jed was an amazing resource in building a brand story for our firm… the ultimate work product far exceeded my expectations. His process was extraordinary, his support above and beyond, and I wholeheartedly recommend him as an outstanding professional who really knows his stuff.”
Utah Power Credit Union (UPCU)
During a pivotal planning period, Utah Power Credit Union engaged us to refine its brand strategy. We guided the board and leadership team through a brand discovery process that produced a mission that captures the heart of the organization: “Our mission is to ensure that Utah Power Credit Union creates financial power with our members by providing excellent value and lifelong relationships.” Together, we also articulated and taught values that define the attitudes and behaviors that bring that mission to life company-wide. As President & CEO Ryan Pollick put it:
“Jed’s methodical research and natural ability to lead made our strategic planning a huge success. His work is energizing our organization and advancing our brand.”
Clarity and Consistency Drive Growth
Brand marketing is essential, but it’s only the beginning. Just as critical is developing a clear, consistent audience and offering messaging that fuels your marketing and sales pipeline. That’s why Backstory Branding partners with leadership teams who know that you’ve got to have clarity at a company and product level to drive profitable growth and multiply enterprise value.
Brand Performance Marketing for Financial Services
If your campaigns aren’t landing, the issue may not be the tactics—it may be the message. Brand performance marketing builds on your brand foundation to define how you show up visually, verbally, and experientially, then activates and amplifies that clarity at an audience- and offering-specific level. Without the right strategy, amplification spreads confusion instead of alignment. The right partner asks thoughtful questions, challenges assumptions, and delivers a differentiated brand narrative and messaging framework that fuels profitable growth. Get the message right, and execution becomes simpler, stronger, and far more effective.
The Right Name Makes Everything Easier
There are four main types of brand names: descriptive, suggestive, arbitrary, and fanciful. Each comes with tradeoffs in relatability, differentiation, and trademark ownability.
- Descriptive names say exactly what the company does. While easy to understand, they’re nearly impossible to trademark. General Electric and International Business Machines are two exceptions.
- Suggestive names allude to what the brand does, striking a balance between clarity and ownability. Examples include Architectural Digest, Toys "R" Us, and Qualtrics.
- Arbitrary names are real words used in unexpected ways—like Apple or Uber. They can stand out, but require time and money to convey their intended meaning.
- Fanciful names are made-up words like Google, Lexus, or Xerox. They’re highly ownable but require significant investment to make meaningful.
The key is finding the right balance between novelty and clarity to support your goals within your available resources.
For example: Do Right Insurance
When Garner D. Jensen Insurance transitioned to new ownership, the firm needed a name that honored the founder’s legacy while paving the way for growth. Our discovery process revealed a consistent theme: clients valued how Garner and his team treated them—always available, always caring. The new name, Do Right Insurance, captured that spirit of serviceability and gave the team a brand they were proud to stand behind and could grow with them.
Because a powerful name without a clear message is like a headline on a blank page, a strategy financial services branding agency helps you create a name that intuitively starts the storytelling process.
What to Look for in a Strategic Financial Services Branding Agency
- Clarity over style. A partner who goes beyond logos and visuals to close the gap between brand and performance marketing with clear, consistent messaging.
- Insight-driven discovery. Someone who takes time to understand your business, customers, and competitive landscape through in-depth interviews and brand audits.
- Structured foundation. A process that defines your brand purpose, position, promise, pillars, and personality—so everything else can build on it.
- Message discipline. The ability to align internal teams and external audiences with a unified narrative that prevents misalignment and price-based comparisons.
- Growth orientation. A focus on how brand clarity drives marketing effectiveness, sales performance, and enterprise value.
- Challenge and collaboration. A partner who asks thoughtful questions, challenges assumptions, and strengthens your leadership team’s decision-making.
- Naming expertise. Guidance on creating names that balance relatability, differentiation, and trademark ownability to support long-term growth.
- Proven outcomes. A track record of helping financial services firms refresh their positioning, inspire their teams, and scale with confidence.
Let’s Build Your Financial Brand Asset
When your story is clear, everything’s easier:
➡️ Your marketing connects.
➡️ Your prospects convert.
➡️ And your brand grows alongside your business.
If you’re ready to invest in a brand strategy, narrative and messaging framework that earns trust, builds authority, and lasts longer than the latest marketing trend—we should talk.
Start with our free Brand Wheel Assessment and see where your brand stands.
Or reach out directly. We look forward to hearing your story.
Frequently Asked Questions
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