Suffolk Building Society

B2C Campaigns

Building Belonging: How ‘A Good Place to Be’ Connected Suffolk Building Society with Its Community

Services

Brand strategy
Campaign creative
Campaign strategy

B2C Campaigns

“”

“Working with Borne over the past few years has been an incredibly satisfying creative journey. As a long-term partner, they understand the brand better than anyone and – crucially – the value it brings to the business.”

Luke Littleboy Head of Marketing

Founded in 1849 to help people buy enough land to secure the vote, Suffolk Building Society’s mission today is to be a safe home for savers, and to provide safe homes for communities.

Following a rebrand led by Borne in 2021, Suffolk Building Society came to us with a brief for a brand campaign. It saw us crafting the creative strategy, developing the platform and creative idea for a campaign, ‘Good Place to Be’ – a compelling campaign that stood out on the street, as well as on their digital platforms.

“It was an amazing opportunity to work with Suffolk Building Society again, on the brand we originally developed,” says Fay Harris, Account Director, Borne. “When we develop a brand, it’s a natural progression to create a brand campaign – our team understands the business’s positioning and we’re able to leverage that knowledge.”

The Brief

Suffolk Building Society has been undergoing a pretty remarkable transformation over the past five years. It started with rebranding from ‘Ipswich’ to ‘Suffolk’ Building Society, a way of broadening the appeal of the society, modernising the brand and re-stating its relevance for a new generation of savers.

They re-articulated their values and membership proposition, launched a new website, and developed their first fully online savings platform.

But brand tracking suggested an opportunity to grow awareness of Suffolk Building Society with a greater proportion of local people – who should have a greater connection to them – and so we were briefed to develop and launch a brand campaign for them to tell their story more deeply, and at greater scale.

The Challenge

Brand advertising emotionally primes people for a decision they haven’t yet made – and brand building is particularly important in financial services, as consumers come into market so infrequently.

We needed a creative platform that could bring every element of communication together – and that could house a complete range of messages about the Society over time. That would make local people feel really good about them as an organisation.

And at its heart, we needed an idea that set out the ultimate point of difference.

There are lots of places you can put your money, but there’s only one that belongs to the people of Suffolk.

The Solution

‘A Good Place to Be’ is about the fundamental connection between Suffolk and its building society. It’s about the values they share with local people – their enduring presence on high streets – the local community projects they fund with their profits – the absence of shareholders to muddy the water of principle.

We launched the platform out-of-home (OOH) across the county, as we knew the channel would give us a perfect combination of impact and stature (outdoor remains the most trusted media channel in the UK). This was accompanied with a digital campaign to drive online saving acquisition for that proportion of the audience that were in-market at the time – and a long form digital video that captured the ethical heart of the society, all under the banner of ‘A Good Place to Be.’

“”

“What the ‘A Good Place to Be’ messaging platform does is communicate the benefits of saving with us. But it also speaks about our ethics and what we believe in as a brand, highlights our charity partners, and also emphasises a sense of ‘Suffolk’ as a place. We now have a platform we can use for many years to come, which is very exciting.”

Luke Littleboy Head of Marketing

Girls’ Day School Trust NHSFG

Virgin Wines

Adnams Stuff of Legend

See (lots) more work