Savings Academy
Let's take a deeper dive into my end-to-end process of developing a brand for my brother's startup, Savings Academy.
I served as Saving Academy's CMO during its launch year- including naming, brand strategy, identity, launch materials, and initial social media marketing. I continue to advise on an informal basis.
The genesis
As you can see, we are official in our communications, despite being super close siblings. I'm glad for it, because it allowed me to capture and reflect back on the inception of Vineet's phenomenal idea.
It's also a reminder to me how long it can take to see the fruits of an idea blossom into a flourishing business.
Naming
Vineet spent almost a year refining his concept, piloting with pro-bono clients, and making the brave decision to launch a business.
In January 2018, it was time to get serious about incorporating. But to incorporate, he needed a name.
I asked Vin to put together a brief including his mission statement, his goals for the company, and a vague idea of his target market. He, Stephanie (his wife and COO), and I got together one chilly winter's day with the task of naming the business.
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We took 20 minutes each to write down as many names as we could think of. We then executed multiple rounds of votes, with fewer and fewer votes allotted each. The crown champion emerged; Savings Academy.
Logo exploration
When designing the logo, I kept in mind:
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Avoiding the use of too many colors
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Steering away from obvious cash-related icons (bags of money, coins, etc)
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Color preference for variants of blue
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Drawing inspiration from brands like Key Bank, Intuit Mint, and Chase.
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I designed the logo in Photoshop, and we went through 16+ image options. After an initial round of review, Vin leaned towards a crest motif I'd presented. I made a second round of options all based on the crest, including an exploration of four tones of blue.
We landed on the logo design that I'd dubbed "modern asymmetry". It's still Savings Academy's logo today.
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Consumer insights
Now that we had a name and a logo, it was time to figure out who our consumers were.
I crafted and presented a consumer insights deck that sought to answer questions like:
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Who is our customer from a basic demographic standpoint?
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What does her lifestyle look like?
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How does she select products and service?
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Who/what inspires trust in her?
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Are there specific mindsets we can tap into?
Archetype exploration
I know they aren't universally celebrated amongst marketers, but I love a good archetypal analysis.
Archetypes shouldn't be what you lean on to create your entire brand persona, but they can be extremely helpful in figuring out the "characters" currently occupying the market.
I conducted an archetypal analysis of the personal finance market and made a recommendation for Savings Academy. We went with "The Caregiver".
Social media
It was February of 2018 and finally time to launch. Armed with insight about our target market, our brand archetype, and our visual guidelines- we needed to make some tangible marketing materials. I partnered with Vin to create a few distinct types of social media items to post on rotation.
Initially, I made all of the social media assets myself. When Vin went full-time with SA, he took over. These post types included:
