Aurora Novus Case Studies

Situation

In August of 2008 Norway Savings Bank in Maine, a smaller, community-minded bank, chose Leslie Evans Design Associates (LEDA), an award winning design, advertising and marketing agency with both national and global clients, for a positioning campaign. As more and more larger banks consolidated and absorbed many smaller banks, Norway Savings wanted to be known as a local and personal bank and also wanted to steal some small business clients from their larger competitors. Their goal was to increase market share by 25 percent within four years. To do this, LEDA conceived six visual stories based around Norway Saving’s business clients. Norway Savings was planning an integrated campaign that would include television commercials, radio spots, print ads, as well as collateral material. This was a large project that could encompass multiple vendors that would strain the limited budget.

Solution

In speaking to Leslie Evans, Jose Azel of Aurora Photos recognized LEDA’s situation and proposed that Aurora handle the job as a single vendor. Aurora’s ability to work as a high-quality photographic vendor that could embrace the entire production made Aurora Photos and more specifically, Aurora Novus, their new production and multimedia division, an obvious choice.

After discussing the project with the principles at Norway Savings Bank, LEDA realized that the timeline for completion was short. Leslie Evans was familiar with Aurora Photos contributing photographer David McClain and his work with MERGE and knowing his skill set with the Red camera, it was evident that he would be the perfect fit to capture video, photography and audio needed for the production. The six television commercials were done in a week-long shoot allowing one day for each story. The spots and post production was done with Aurora Senior Editor Russell Chadwick at Aurora Photos headquarters in Maine.

All the assets for the six thirty-second television spots and six fifteen-second radio spots in addition to all the other aspects of the collateral, print ads and brochures were captured for LEDA and Norway Savings during the shoot, all produced under one roof.

Results

The campaign was very successful for the bank and also a critical hit. Karen Hakala, Norway’s Senior VP of Marketing, was quoted in US Banker saying, “Since the “Colorful Solutions” ads launched a year ago, small business loans have increased by 8 percent and commercial deposits have grown by 17 percent.”
On September 15th, 2009, a group of the best bank advertising and marketing campaigns from across the United States were recognized in San Antonio, Texas at the American Banker’s Association 2009 Financial Marketing Awards ceremony. The Norway Savings Bank campaign was the winner in their asset class and was also declared “Best of Show”.