2012 capstone mauriello(1)

8/13/2019 2012 Capstone Mauriello(1)

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FULTON BANK OF NEW JERSEY

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for

Fulton Bank of New Jersey

Stonier Capstone Final Project

Josephine Mauriello

02/27/2012


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Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey

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Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: ......................................................................................................... 2

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND: ............................................................................... 4

Corporation History ...................................................................................................................................... 4

Corporate Strategies ..................................................................................................................................... 7

Financial Condition ....................................................................................................................................... 8

Market Share ................................................................................................................................................ 9

STRATEGY AND IMPLEMENTATION: .............................................................................. 11

Benchmarking Success ................................................................................................................................ 14

Implementation Project Team .................................................................................................................... 16

FINANCIAL IMPACT: ............................................................................................................ 19

Financial Conclusions .................................................................................................................................. 24

NON-FINANCIAL IMPACT: .................................................................................................. 25

The Customer Experience ........................................................................................................................... 27

CONCLUSION: .......................................................................................................................... 30

APPENDIX:................................................................................................................................. 30


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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Fulton Bank of New Jersey was established on October 22, 2011 as a result of two

subsidiary banks of Fulton Financial Corporation merging together to become a new state

chartered bank. The two banks are The Bank, which was founded in 1989 and has primary

market presence in the Southern and Central part of New Jersey and Skylands Community Bank,

which was founded in 1990 and primarily resides in the Northern part of New Jersey.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a branding strategy for the state of New Jersey that

will establish our new bank name and brand throughout the marketplace while capitalizing on

our new size and reach across the state of New Jersey. The timing of creating a brand strategy is

critical right now for a newly state chartered bank as we outline three critical key factors; (1) the

need to announce the merger of the two banks (2) retain and acquire new customers (3) capitalize

on the positive reputation community banks currently have in the marketplace compared to the

bigger national and regional banks.

The objective of this report will outline how to utilize the corporations existing

established Brand promise while creating a strategic approach to allocating our marketing dollars

using a brand allocation model. This methodology will challenge how the two banks

traditionally allocated and budgeted their marketing dollars which allocated primary sources of

funds towards production promotion vs. brand promotion.

The brand allocation model proposed in this report is based on market research which

includes customer and non-customer data obtained from customer surveys, brand awareness

studies for non-customers and market share and householdreports that will be used to benchmark

the success of the implementation of this model.


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The financial impact of implementing this model will include an initial expense to the

new bank and will also impact the corporation and their other affiliate banks in the fourth quarter

of 2012. Overall, the brand strategy will have a positive impact on the banks bottom line with the

expected revenue it will generate from attracting and obtaining new core retail and new core

commercial households. These new households will also give the bank a continued revenue

stream beyond 2012 through the continued cross-selling of additional products and services.

The non-financial impact will be the biggest hurdle to overcome when implementing this

new brand allocation model. The strategy will support how the banks Senior Management team

will need to change their mindset about how marketing dollars are allocated today towards

product promotion, where the largest portion of marketing dollars are currently spent. To

support the implementation of the brand allocation model; this report will show the stakeholders

the financial outcomes and impact the new brand strategy will have to the banks bottom line.

I highly support and recommend moving forward with this proposal. The strategy and

recommendations outlined in this paper support the banks community bank message and the

positive impact to the organization, employees and customers. Based on the analysis detailed in

this report, the project would pay for itself after the initial implementation and will continue to

have a positive financial and customer impact both short term and long term to the bank.


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INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND:

Corporation History

Fulton Bank of New Jersey will become a new state chartered bank post October 22,

2011. The new bank will be the result of a merger between two current affiliate banks; The

Bank and Skylands Community Bank.

The Bank and Skylands Community Bank are both subsidiaries of Fulton Financial

Corporation (FFC). Fulton Financial Corporation is a $16 billion Lancaster, PA-based financial

holding company that has 3,950 employees and that operates 271 branches in Pennsylvania,

Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Virginia through seven subsidiary banks. Our Mission

StatementWe will increase shareholder value and enrich the communities we serve by

creating financial success together with our customers and career success together with our

employees. We will conduct all of our business with honesty and integrity.1

We are a full service commercial bank that provides products and services to personal,

commercial and small business customers. In addition, we offer Wealth Management and

Brokerage Services through Clermont Wealth Strategies and have a full service mortgage

company.

To help understand the decision to merge the two affiliate banks, the following is a brief history

of their evolution.

The Bank was founded in 1989 and was named The Bank of Gloucester County. It was astart up commercial bank which primarily operated in 1 of the 21 counties in the state of

1Fulton Financial Corporation: History

www.fult.com/aboutus/history.asp


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New Jersey. It established its headquarters in Woodbury, NJ. In the first two years they

opened a total of four new branches.

The Bankbecame part of the Fulton Financial Corporation in 1997. The communitybanking business model for the holding company and itsaffiliated banks is to keep local

decision making and senior management leadership at the affiliate level.

In 2003, The Bank of Gloucester County bought The Bank of Woodstown. The Bank ofWoodstown was established in 1920 and operated branches in the Salem County area. At

this time, The Bank decided to change their name based upon their new expanded

geographical territory. The decision was made to drop the words of Gloucester County

and the new name, The Bank was chosen as the new combined banks name.

The last merger for The Bank was in 2004 when they purchased First Washington. Atthe close of this merger, they kept the name First Washington and made it a division of

The Bank. This merger added a branch network of 17 branches spread throughout three

counties in the central region of the State.

Today, The Bankoperates 48 branches in nine of the counties in Southern and CentralRegions of New Jersey. The Bank also has 8 Loan Production Offices located

throughout their footprint. The Bank has had an aggressive new branching plan for the

past six years that focused on building new branches in targeted growth markets. In

2005, they adopted the ABC growth plan which focused on opening branches in the

Atlantic, Burlington and Camden County markets. The plan was to open 15 branches

over a five year period. In 2005, The Bank opened its first branch in Atlantic county and

has since opened three more in that marketplace to complete the plan. Between 2005 and

2010, The Bank opened an additional 13 new branches spread throughout Burlington,


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Camden, Atlantic, Ocean and Gloucester counties. In the spring of 2010, The Bank made

the decision to re-locate their corporate headquarters to Mount Laurel, New Jersey which

is located in Burlington County. The growth they had experienced over the past six years

gave them greater access to customers in the middle of the state. The move signified the

growth of the organization at a time where most banks were struggling with the economic

downturn and positioned The Bank for future opportunity.

Skylands Community Bank opened their doors in 1990. They were a commercial bankthat primarily operated in the Northwestern region of the State. They were headquartered

in Hackettstown, NJ.

In 2000, Skylands became part of the Fulton Financial Corporation; operating under thesame community banking business model as The Bank and the other affiliate banks.

Somerset Valley Bank became part of Fulton Financial Corporation in 2005. SomersetValley was headquartered in Somerville, NJ in Somerset County. Their branch

distribution was primarily in Middlesex and Somerset counties which are located in the

central region of the State. They later merged with Skylands Community Bank in 2007.

Today, Skylands Community Bank operates 27 branches in the central and northwesternregions of New Jersey.The also have one Loan Production Office located in the

Hackettstown location. They moved their headquarters to Chester, NJ which is located in

Morris County, New Jersey.

The new bank, Fulton Bank of New Jersey, will have combined assets of approximately $3.5

billion. They will operate 74 branches and ATMs throughout the state. They will have

approximately 600 employees. The headquarters will be in Mount Laurel, New Jersey which is

the former headquarters for The Bank. Post merger there will be a new Region structure put into


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place with local senior management leadership to ensure customers continue to have access to

the local decision makers. Three regions have been established; Northern, Central and Southern.

Each will have a Regional President and Senior Lender to support the commercial and small

business teams and a senior Retail Banking Executive to support the branch network throughout

each Region.

Corporate Strategies

The holding company established a brand promise Listening is Just the Beginning three

years ago to ensure that our employees and customers are connected to our customer promise;

Care Listen, Understand and Deliver exceptional service in every customer interaction. The

customer promise has become an integral part of our corporationsculture. We believe that it is

a differentiator for us in the markets we serve and will be a strategic way we continue to attract

new customers to our bank and increase market share.The customer promise and brand promise

are woven into the corporationsstrategic plans and supported through the affiliatesbusiness

plans.

Every year the members of the FFC Senior Management team along with affiliate

CEOsand the Department Heads of various lines of business build a strategic plan which

outlines the corporations strategies. Each affiliate bank adopts the framework and creates their

own individualized business plan to support the goals of the corporation and meet their financial

goals. There are four primary strategies; Employee Engagement, Customer Experience,

Organization Efficiency and Financial Performance. Under each strategy there are multiple

metrics to measure performance and the line of business responsible for building the action plans

to support the metrics.


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clearly see from the map that the merger of the two New Jersey banks is a natural next step in

providing customers with greater access to a statewide banking solution. It also positions the

new Fulton Bank of New Jersey for future growth through new branching and acquisition.3

3Fulton Financial Corporation: Locationswww.fult.com/aboutus/locations.asp

Map of Fulton Financial Corporation and Affiliates Banks as of September 2011

Affiliate Banks in the state of Pennsylvania include; FNB Bank, Fulton Bank, Lafayette

Ambassador Bank and Swineford National Bank. Columbia Bank is in the state of

Maryland, Fulton Bank South is in the state of Virginia and The Bank and Skylands

Community Bank are in the state of New Jersey.


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STRATEGY AND IMPLEMENTATION:

This recommendation is to create a consistent branding strategy for the state of New

Jersey that will be implemented in the later part of October 2011 and continue as a framework

for subsequent years. We will use a mix of media to achieve strong reach and frequency

numbers. This strategy includes the justification of re-allocating the marketing dollars we

currently have left in our 2011 marketing budget and proposing an additional spend to support

our branding efforts for the remainder of 2011.

The strategy will challenge how we have allocated our marketing dollars in the past and

recommend a new allocation model where we approach the marketing budget with a balanced

focus on brand and product promotion.

Today we allocate 28% of the total marketing budget for brand promotion and 60% for

product promotion, in this recommendation the new allocation model will propose that we

increase the % allocated to brand promotion to 50% for the rest of 2011 and then lower it to 40%

in 2012 and 2013 which would give us a 12% increase over our prior year 2011.

The objective of creating a branding strategy for the new Fulton Bank of New Jersey is

three fold; (1) we are becoming a brand new bank with a new namewhich we will need to

announce the merging of our two banks throughout the state of New Jersey (2) retain and acquire

new customers (3) community banks have a positive reputation in the marketplace compared to

the daily negative press you read and hear about related to the bigger national and regional

banks. It is our time to leverage our community bank brand message in the areas we currently

have a branch presence and then look to expand that message in markets we have identified as

potential growth markets.


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As a community bank we take pride in the way we can deliver our hometown style of

banking to our customers. We have the ability to really get to know our customers; understand

their needs and work on personalized solutions that benefit them, not just us. We make local

decisions for our customers which creates a very positive customer experience which in turn

creates opportunity for us to continue to grow that customers relationship with the bank. Our

customer satisfaction scores from post transaction customer surveys are consistently in the high

90s.4

When asked How satisfied are you with your banking relationship, more than nine inten respondents were satisfied with Fulton Financial Corporation this quarter.

FFC Top Box = 95% Benchmark Top Box = 80%

4ath Power Consulting 2011 FFC Post Transaction Survey Reportwww.athpowerconsulting.com


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If we do not put a brand strategy in place, we could potentially loose our existing customers and

have a harder time attracting new customersbecause todayscompetitive landscape is changing

rapidly.

The regulatory environment is causing banks to take a hard look at their current products

and services and challenging them to push the envelope by making changes to service,

maintenance and convenience fees that will directly impact the customer. Some of the

regulations also will dictate how we will be able to promote, advertise and market certain

accounts for new acquisition of households.

Today, we do not have a branding strategy; rather we market and advertise products to

attract new retail and commercial households. A brand strategy does not sell products and

services, rather it supports the culture of the organization by telling the corporations story.

Through that brand messaging customers will become familiar with your product, your services

and most importantly they should feel how you deliver on that brand message as an

organization. It is critical for us as an organization to think differently and challenge ourselves

to take the risk to promote our brand vs. a product. As customers continue to feel the changes at

their current bank, they have also become weary that all banks are the same. The larger banks

can and will continue to spend large amounts of marketing dollars on campaigns that are focused

on re-building their brand and reputation. One of our challenges has always been that we have

limited marketing dollars, which we primarily spend on promoting product. As a company we

need to grow new retail, commercial and small business households, so the marketing dollars are

allocated towards acquisition, because we can measure the results of a product campaign;

whether its direct mail responses, email replies or a customer walking in the door, its tangible.

We can measure the return on investment and as bankers; we like to see the direct impact on the


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bottom line. Promoting brand alone does not give us that direct return on investment.

However, it will allow prospects and customers to easily recall our bank when they are

thinking of changing their banking relationship. The ability to recall us or think of us first

will relate into new profitable customers to our organization.

Benchmarking Success

There are several benchmarks that will be used to measure our impact and success of the

implementation of this strategy. The Bank Awareness Level Study and our Retail and

Commercial Household reports.

The first benchmarkis a study that was conducted by an outside consultant called Bank

Awareness Levels. This study was conducted in all of our affiliate markets in 2009 and then

again in 2010. The primary objective of the study was to measure the level of awareness of our

banks within their primary markets and to understand the impact of the listening brand message

within those regions. Part of this recommendation will be to use this study as a benchmark and

conduct a similar study again six months after we launch our brand strategy. We will be able to

use the same research methodology which is broken into two categories:5

Unaided AwarenessRespondents asked which banks come to mind with noprompting or assistance.

Aide AwarenessRespondents are given a list of bank names and asked which they arefamiliar with.

In 2009 all of the affiliate banks had their own brand identity; in 2010 the corporation

launched a brand campaign that began to incorporate the same message for all of the seven

5The Melior Group Fulton Financial Corporation Bank Awareness Study Fall 2010


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affiliate banks that are under the same Fulton Financial Corporation umbrella. At that time, we

adopted a brand tag line called, Listening is just the Beginning. The new brand was launched

at the beginning of 2010 with very little marketing dollars spent on brand, rather staying with our

strategy of marketing product and simply putting our new brand tag line on the different types of

media we used for product campaigns. The chart below outlines the customers response when

they were asked the following two questions; (1) Unaided Awareness Respondents were

asked which banks come to mind with no prompting or assistance. (2) Aide Awareness

Respondents are given a list of bank names and asked which they are familiar with.

You will see from the results listed below The Bank had an increase in the Unaided

category from 2009 to 2010, while Skylands remained flat. Yet, Skylands had a higher %

baseline in the Aided category and went slightly went down year over year, while The Bank

had a significant increase from 2009 to 2010.

Affiliate Bank Unaided % Aided % Combined %

Awareness

2012 Combined

Awareness Goal

2009 2010 2009 2010 2009 2010 2012

The Bank 2% 9% 39% 58% 6% 25% 45%

Skylands 3% 3% 55% 53% 3% 13% 25%

*125 interviews per bank, per study.

The second benchmark will be our retail and commercial household reports. This report

details the number of retail and commercial households that currently bank with us and the


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number of services per household. This report will be used to trend our growth in the number of

both retail and commercial households post merger6.

Current Retail Households Current Commercial Households

The Bank37,496 The Bank12,247

Skylands12,481 Skylands8,578

Combined49,977 Combined 20,825 *as of 9/30/11

2012 Goal = 3% HH growth 2012 Goal = 2% HH growth

Implementation Project Team

A Project team was put into place on 8/29/11 with the goal to implement all facets of the

new brand media campaign to be ready to launch for the weekend of October 22,2011. The

Project team includes the following people;

JoBeth MaurielloNJ Sales & Marketing Manager who will be the Project Manager, in this

role JoBeth will be responsible for managing the ongoing communication between the affiliate

CEO, President and project team members. Other responsibilities will include managing the

brand media budget to include all proposals and approvals needed from the local Executive

Management team and the FFC Senior Management team, make recommendations for specific

market media buys in NJ, tracking and measurement of the brand campaign post implementation

6Fulton Financial Corporation Retail and Commercial Household reports Internal Use


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and internal communication of the components of the brand campaign to all the employees in

New Jersey.

(xxxxxxx) is the Brand Manager for Fulton Financial Corporation; she will have oversight

responsibility for developing and managing the creative concepts with our current ad agency.

Fulton Financial Corporation contracts with an ad agency on a yearly basis for creative concepts

and ideas for all of our corporate marketing initiatives. We will work with our in house

Designers to formalize and customize the media pieces to compliment the specific mediums.

(xxxxx) is a Media Buyer with Fulton Financial Corporation. She will have the responsibility to

research alternative media buysfor New Jersey; including obtaining the best mediums for this

campaign, media schedules and placement of the media.She will make recommendations back to

the project team on each media outlined in the project plan. Once all facets of the media buys

are approved, she will also be responsible to ensure the timeliness of paying these expenses in

2011 with our Corporate Controllers Department.


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The following is a timeline of the project.

The scope of this project is currently beyond my day to day job responsibilities as the

Marketing Manager for New Jersey. This project will give me the opportunity to develop the

8/29/11

Purpose - Projectteam meets for firsttime to discusscreative conceptsand beginning

planning stages formedia buy.

Goal - Discussconcepts, initialmedia plan &

budget.

Follow up - Due toteam by 9/8/11

9/8/11

Purpose-Present 4creative concepts to CEO

& President of The Bankand Skylands CommunityBank.

Goal- Gain agreementon (1) concept to moveforward. Share initalmedia plan & budgetwith group and gain

buyin for proposedbudget.

Follow up - Present toFFC Senior Managementfor final approval on

9/15/11.

9/15/11

Purpose - Presentmedia brand strategyto the FFC SeniorManagmeent eamwhich outlines ourobjective, strategy,timeline, creative andmeida plan .

Goal- Gain approvalfor proposed budget.

Follow up - 9/20/11Book media,

communicate toaffiliate Senior Mgtmedia plan.

10/24/1111/28/11

PurposeImplement brand

media campaign across NJfootprint.

Goal10/24/11 launch forTV, print, radio, outdoor,online & web

Follow uptrack media buyplacement through end ofcampaign11/28/11


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When building a media plan and budget for this project, the goal is to outline themedia

strategy to ensure the right mix of media is used so the message reaches the highest penetration

of households throughout the state of New Jersey.We need to make some assumptions about the

costs we spend on each media outlet vs. the direct revenue impact to our corporation. One of our

measurements of success for this project will be increasing our retail household base by 3% and

our commercial household base by 2% for 2012. Our average profit we make on a retail

household today is $927 and $3,028 on our commercial households. Using the best case

scenario, based on this assumption, if we grow our retail households by 3% we would gain 1500

new households with an average profit of $1,390,500 and using the same assumptions for our

commercial households, if we grow them by 2% we would gain 417 new households with an

average profit of $1,262,676.7 Total potential revenues to our corporation would equal

$2,653,176 vs. a total expense for the campaign of $829,059 which would reflect a net positive

$1,824,117 in revenue. Using a worst case scenario, lets assume we only achieve half of our

goal and only grow our retail households in 2012 by 1.5% we would gain 500 new retail

households with an average profit of $463,500. Using the same worst case scenario for the

commercial households, lets assume we only grow by .5% we would gain 104 commercial

households with an average profit of $314,912. Our total potential revenues to our corporation

would be $778,412 vs. expenses of $829,059 which would reflect a loss of $50,647. Based on

historical return on investments for campaigns, our most likely scenario is that we grow our retail

households by 2% which would gain us 1,000 new retail households with an average profit of

$927,000. Using the same assumptions for our commercial households, we are most likely to

grow by 1.5% which we would gain 313 new commercial households with an average profit of

$950,000. Using this most likely scenario, our total potential revenues to our corporation would

7Fulton Financial Corporation Household Summary Distribution Report Internal Use


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be $1,877,000 vs. expenses of $829,059 which would reflect net positive $1,047,941in revenue.

The current economic conditions in certain demographic markets in New Jersey where

housing prices are extremely down and unemployment is higher than the National average could

play a critical role in our ability to obtain new core retail and core commercial households in

2012. However, because of the instability in the financial industry where a large majority of the

National and Regional banks are now beginning to charge customers to have a checking account

and other products, community banks will continue to benefit from the market disruption and

churn that these larger banks are creating in the marketplace. Using our most likely scenario

aligns with the average core retail and core commercial household growth we have experienced

in the New Jersey marketplace over the past two years.

The following is a breakdown of each media outlet that is proposed for this project. We

calculate our return on investment by measuring the total Impressions that media outlet

reaches then use a conversion rate that helps us calculate the actual expense or costs of the

media. We define Impressions as the estimated number of people who will see our ad

placement. We also applied the following demographic filter to all media outlets for this

campaign; 18-49 year olds. (Appendix I)

Television Frequency: 4 weeks Total Cost:$125,660 Total Estimated Impressions 3,211,123

o We use Gross Rating Points (GRP) x the Universe Estimate to calculate our GrossImpressions. The Universe Estimate is the total persons or homes in a given

designated market area (DMA) that fit the criteria we have defined (for this

project it is 18-49 year olds). The designated market area (DMA) is a region


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where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station

offerings. To calculate our Gross Rating Points, we look at the Rating Point which

is the estimate of the size of the television audience relative to the total universe,

expressed as a percentage. The estimated percent of all TV households or persons

tuned to a specific TV show. For example, if the Universe Estimate is 100 and 4

people watch a show the rating is 4%. The Gross Rating Points is the sum of all

rating points for all programs in a schedule for a particular period of time. For

this projection we add up the sum of all the ratings and add up all the spots and

multiply the rating sum by the spot sum to determine our expense.

Business Publications Frequency: 1 insertion Total Cost:$ 7,425 Total Estimated Impressions 379,317

o We use the estimated total circulation of each publication x 2.5 pass along rate tocalculate our total expense. Pass along rate assumes that the average person will

pass along the publication to at least 2.5 people to read.

News Paper Frequency: 4 weeks Total Cost:$347,492 Total Estimated Impressions 5,579,085

o We use the estimated total circulation for each newspaperx 2.5 pass along rate tocalculate our total expense. Pass along rate assumes that the average person will

pass along the publication to at least 2.5 people to read.

Radio Frequency: 4 weeks Total Cost:$126,010 Total Estimated Impressions 675,100


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o We use the same ratings system as Television. Gross Ratings Points (GRP) x theUniverse Estimate to calculate our Gross Impressions.

Out of Homeo BillBoard Frequency: 8 weeks Total Cost: $ 66,684

Total Estimated Impressions 2,088,020o Impressions equal the estimated number of cars that drive by the outdoor

billboard in a 24 hour period.

Online Frequency: 8 weeks Total Cost: $ 39,180 Total Estimated Impressions 40,524,819

o We buy Impressions based on the frequency of the placement of the online adsand we use targeted zip codes that reside in all of the counties we have a branch

or office location. For this campaign we targeted 4,500,000 Impressions. We

also measure open rate and click through rate (CTR) of the ads we place.

Industry average for open rate is around 18%, we will look for a 30% open

rate and the industry average for click through; rate is 1%, we will look for a

5% click rate based on these emails going to a mix of existing customers and

prospects.

Production Costs Total Cost:$ 116,608====================================================================

Total Costs $829,059


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Financial Conclusions

The media outlets we are proposing for this project have been researched and vetted to

match the customer segment base that is our primary target for us to reach optimal market

penetration and exposure in markets where we currently have a customer presence and in

markets that we have targeted for future growth. We have chosen a media mix that will allow us

to efficiently utilize our budget dollars by using various sources of media, frequencies and

customer demographicsthat are outlined above to reach our end user, the customer.

Using the assumptions we made for our most likely scenario, the outcome of this

campaign will not only give us the present day brand exposure we need, it will also create future

brand awareness that which will be a critical factor for us to grow future households.

Thepotential financial impact of $1,047,094 in revenue will be a direct positive impact to our

corporations bottom line.

Along with the revenue we will generate from obtaining new core retail and new core

commercial households, we will also be able to use these new households to promote, market

and cross sell additional products and services which will give us a continued revenue stream

beyond 2012.

We know that current economic conditions could negatively impact our ability to attract

and grow new households during this campaign; however, if we do nothing, we do risk the

potential of not creating impact in a marketplace that is currently unstable about their financial

institution. Many banks; both large and small generally do not spend a lot of media dollars in the

last quarter of the year. Their absence in the marketplace, gives us another strategic advantage to

dominate the blank marketplace.


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The window of opportunity for the implementation of this project is short due to the

timing of the coming together of the two banks along with the various other factors; current

market and economic factors that have been mentioned prior in this proposal. This is an

unexpected opportunity that was not planned or budgeted at the beginning of 2011, but born out

of a sense of urgency created with the announcement of our merger.

The positive factors associated with creating the New Jersey branding strategy for Fulton

Bank of New Jersey outweigh the potential negative factors, now is our time to implement,

execute and deliver on our newly created branding strategy.

NON-FINANCIAL IMPACT:

The development and implementation of a brand strategy creates opportunity in the

marketplace today and in the future with our existing customers and prospects. The new brand

message supports and reinforces to the marketplace that we are their community bank solution;

we always have been and we will continue to be their best option for their financial needs. The

message supports our Customer Promise to Care, Listen, Understand and Deliver an exceptional

customer experience in every interaction a customer has with our corporation. The merger of our

two community banks could be perceived negatively in the marketplace if we do not proactively

brand our new message and keep a consistent customer focused message. Currently, there is

momentum in the marketplace towards customers leaving their National and Regional banks and

making the switch to the smaller community banks. Not having a brand strategy that

compliments our focus on the customer could have a negative effect in the marketplace where

customers perceive that we are exiting the market, becoming just as big as the bank they left or

that we are no longer customer focused. The non-financial impact of not implementing this


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strategy could far outweigh the financial impact to our bottom line. The non-financial impact

would be felt short term and long term.

There are several hurdles we will need to overcome to gain approval to execute this

strategy. This strategy will support how we need to change our mindset about how we allocate

and spend our marketing dollars today, brand vs. product promotion. The second hurdle to

overcome will be gaining the financial support to implement and execute the new brand strategy.

As we build our 20122013 marketing plans and budgets we will need support to use

the new allocation model proposed in this branding strategy to carry forward in subsequent years

and become the new preferred method. As I mentioned above, currently we spend the largest

portion of our marketing dollars primarily to promote products because we feel that marketing

the benefits and features of specific products is a driver for customers when making decisions

about changing their banking relationships and its the way we have always done it. We can also

measure results of product campaigns through the return on investment we realize to our bottom

line through the opening of new accounts, the cross-selling of new accounts to new households

and the fee income associated with any new products or services that are opened as a result of a

product campaign. To overcome this hurdle, the plan will be to incorporate into the presentation

to the Senior Management team the Most Likely Scenario assumptions which outline the

financial impact of implementing this strategy. It also serves two-fold since the metrics used to

make the financial assumptions, also supports our business plan objectives of growing new core

retail and core commercial households.Showing the potential revenue we would realize vs. the

actual expense to implement this brand strategy will be a positive reflection on this proposal and

further support why it is important for us to put aside how we have done things in the past and

think forward.


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Overcoming the first hurdle will position us to use the new allocation method going

forward. To do this, we will need to show our stakeholders the financial outcomes and impact

the new brand campaign had to our companys bottom line. We will use our two benchmarks as

measures of success; The Bank Awareness Level Study and our Retail and Commercial

Household reports. If we can deliver on the above plan and overcome the outlined obstacles,

gaining the approval for financial support or to spend the dollars recommended in the new

branding strategy will no longer be an obstacle.

The Customer Experience

We are a financial institution, anytime we make recommendations that have a cost or

expense associated with them; we automatically want to calculate the return on investment. As

Bankers, it is sometimes hard to step outside of that financial box and understand how the impact

of your change or recommendation can positively or negatively impact the customer. Being a

community bank, we have always taken pride in the way we have been able to deliver to our

customers a unique and personalized style of banking. We truly believe this is a differentiator in

the marketplace.A brand strategy does not sell products and services, rather it supports the

culture of the organization by telling the corporations story. The proposed brand strategy

supports our community bank message and the impact to our organization, employees and

customers reflect in our strong financial performance, employee retention and customer

satisfaction ratings.

The non-financial impact can be measured through the results we compile from our

customers feedback related to three types of customer surveys we have implemented as part of

our overall customer experience strategic plan.The following is a brief description of the three

types of customer survey tools we use:


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Retail Customer Satisfaction Survey: the primary goal of this survey is to ask questionsthat focus on the following customer loyalty metrics; (1) customers overall satisfaction

(2) customer net promoter score, which is their likelihood to recommend us to a friend or

family member (3) the customers possibility of future use or repurchase (4) the customers

reason for loyalty. This survey is sent to our customers online and administered

annually.8

Account Open Survey: the primary goal of this survey is to understand if our sales andservices behaviors and standards are demonstrated by front line employees who opened

the new account relationship with the customer. The questions asked also tell us the

factors that led them to choose our financial institution and measures the behaviors

demonstrated and their impact on the overall satisfaction and loyalty of this new

customer. This is a telephone survey and is conducted biannually.9

Post-Transaction Survey: the primary goal of this survey is very similar to the AccountOpen Survey with the exception that the target audience is an existing customer.

Through the question we ask, we look to understand the key drivers of satisfaction and

loyalty that can help us improve our customersrelationships through retention and

increased share of wallet.This is a telephone survey and is conducted in alternating

months biannually to complement the Account Open Survey.10

Based on the three customer surveys outlined above, we will be able to measure how our

brand message has affected the customer experience. We have benchmarks and trending data

8ath Power ConsultingFulton Financial Corporation2011 Retail Customer Satisfaction Surveywww.athpowerconsulting.com9ath Power Consulting Fulton Financial Corporation2011 Account Open Surveywww.athpowerconsulting.com10ath Power Consulting Fulton Financial Corporation2011 Post Transaction Surveywww.athpowerconsulting.com


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that we will use to track and document customer response rates. We will use quarterly data from

each quarter of 2011 and compare it to results received in each quarter of 2012 and 2013. The

following are key measures to customer satisfaction that we will use as our benchmark:

Key Measurement 2011 Benchmark

Customer Net Promoter Score 73%

Customer Overall Satisfaction Score 95%

Likelihood for Repurchase 65%

The Customer Net Promoter Scoreis defined as the number of customers surveyed whenasked the question, how likely are you to tell your friends and family about our bank.

A scalefrom 1-10 is used to determine the score. 1-5 ratings are detractors, 6-7 are

neutral and 8-10 promoters. The Net Promoter Score = Promoters Detractors.

Customer Overall Satisfaction Scoreis defined a single summary question, howsatisfied are you with your overall experience.

Likelihood for Repurchaseis defined as the number of customer surveyed when asked thequestion, how likely are you to buy from us again. We use a scale from 1-10 to

determine our score. 1-4 unlikely, 5-7 neutral, 8-9 likely and 10 extremely likely.

The long term effects of achieving and exceeding these benchmarks, will impact our bottom

line profitability. These key measures tell us how likely customers are to promote us to their

family and friends and their likelihood to buy again from us in the future when they have a

need. This in turn means we acquire new retail and commercial households from new customers

and we have the opportunity to sell additional products and services to our existing


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customers.Attention to these key measures are being heavily weighted as we build the brand

message to highlight the goodwill value of these customer experience metrics and illustrate the

importance they will have short term and long term to our corporation.

CONCLUSION:

In summary, creating a brand strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey is timely due to the

coming together of two former affiliate banks in the state of New Jersey. The brand allocation

model outlines multiple positive factors that will increase the brand awareness of the bank,

attract new core retail and new core commercial households and support the overall community

bank message to the marketplace.

The successful implementation of this strategy, will allow Fulton Bank of New Jersey to

gain short term and long term financial success for their shareholders, customers and employees.

APPENDIX I:

October November

Media Frequency 24 31 7 14 21

TELEVISION (Both Banks)

NCC Media

4 weeks

(various

programming on

USA, TNT, FX, Nick,

Bravo, CMT, TBS)


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Comcast Spotlight

4 weeks

Various

programming on

USA, ESPN, TBS,

Bravo, TNT, Food,

History, TLC, CSN

WPVI- 6 ABC4 Weeks

(News only)

October November


BUSINESSPUBLICATIONS

(Both Banks)

Mercer Business 1 insertion

SJ Magazine 1 insertion

SJ Business People 1 insertion

Philadelphia Biz Journal 1 insertion

New Jersey Business 1 insertion

October November


NEWSPAPER

Atlantic City Press 3 weeks- Sunday

Bridgetown Evening News 3 weeks- Monday

Camden Courier Post 3 weeks- Sunday

Cherry Hill Sun,

Haddonfield Sun and

Voorhees Sun

3 weeks-

Wednesday

(3 paper combo)


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Current of Absecon-

Pleasantville and Current

of Galloway Twp

3 weeks-

Wednesday

(2 paper combo)

Gloucester County Times 3 weeks- Sunday

Medford Central Record 3 weeks- Thursday

Princeton Packet (6

papers)

(Allentown Messenger,

Cranberry Press,

Princeton Packet,

Lawrenceville Ledger,

Hamilton-Robbinsville

Observer, Windsor

Heights Herald)

3 weeks

( 6 paper Combo-

Thursday/Friday)

Salem Today's Sunbeam 3 weeks- Sunday

Trenton Times 3 weeks- Sunday

Philadelphia Inquirer 3 weeks- Sunday

Washington Township

Times1 week

Bridgewater Courier

News3 weeks- Sunday

Easton Express Times3 weeks-

Wednesday

Newark Star-Ledger

(Somerset/Hunterdon,

Sussex/Warren and

Middlesex Zones)

3 weeks- Sunday

Hunterdon County

Democrat

3 weeks- Thursday

(Forced 2 paper

combo)

Morristown Daily Record 3 weeks- Sunday

October November


RADIO

WMGK-FM4 weeks

9 spots/week

WMMR

4 weeks

10 spots/week

WKXW- FM/NJ 101.5

co branded with SCB

(SCB 40% / TB 60%)

4 weeks

15 spots/week


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WSJO/SoJo 104.9

co branded with SCB

(SCB 40% / TB 60%)

4 weeks

15 spots/week

Metro Network- Traffic

4 weeks

PHL (50/wk), AC

(30/wk), NJ

(47/wk)

WRNJ 8 weeks

WMGQ/Magic 98.3

4 weeks

15 spots/week

WCTC/1450

4 weeks

15 spots/week

Metro Network- traffic

4 weeks

NY (17/wk), NJ

(22/wk)

October November


OUTDOOR

Interstate Outdoor (Rt

33)8 weeks

Astro Sign Company

(Elmer branch)8 weeks

CBS Outdoor- Somerville 8 weeks

CBS Outdoor-

Hackettstown8 weeks

October November


ONLINE (Both Banks)

National/Local web ads

(geotargeting for

specific counties)

4 weeks

(4,500,000

impressions)

Facebook.com 8 week


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Figure 1. Media Buy Schedule (Fulton Bank of New Jersey, October 2011)

2012 capstone mauriello(1)

Documents