100 Years of Getting It Right.
McDowell Associates lived and breathed by providing great service and care to their neighbors and community in Greensburg, Pennsylvania for a hundred years.
But then they realized that to grow, they would need to set their sights statewide. Moving from a local to a regional brand is no small undertaking. Could their brand thrive in larger field?
What’s old is new.
Bringing 100-years of tradition into the future with service inspired by the past, and technology-driven by the future.
McDowell Associates had over a century’s worth of pedigree behind their brand as 2020 drew to a close. They had a well-established network of clients and partners, mostly confined to Western Pennsylvania, where they had operated since the turn of the 20th century.
But now, under new ownership and with a suite of financial services being offered for the first time, McDowell was poised to do something they hadn’t done in nearly a century of business – to expand beyond the confluence where the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monogahela Rivers meet and pursue new clients across the entire state and beyond.
The challenge in this move, was to retain McDowell’s incredible brand legacy, while also modernizing the look and language of the brand to reflect their progressive work and high-tech leanings. The brand had to be classic and state-of-the-art all at once, so that wherever someone might find or rediscover McDowell, they would immediately understand that a company that’s thrived for a hundred years, has another hundred years of future ahead of it.
An online presence to match.
Timeless and functional. Simple yet exemplary of a century of history. Oh yeah, and friendly to both local and national SEO. Not the easiest hills to climb in the creation of the McDowell website, but essential.
We used black-and-white photography from both yesterday and today to bring a sense of history, and we mapped customer journeys through the site for both their existing clients and future prospects, highlighting their expansion of services and regional market.
“Working with the entire team at CultureCraft has been not only a transformational experience for my business, but they are a blast to work with. We have big goals at McDowell and CultureCraft did such a great job with our rebranding that I look at our business with a new level of confidence and excitement.”
— Brad Roth, CEO of McDowell Associates
Joining History and Modernity
With McDowell, we focused their rebrand on three primary goals:
Beyond Insurance
First, we created a brand that was about more than insurance coverages. McDowell was now a Financial Planning and RIA firm as well, and we crafted the website and supporting content to reflect and emphasize this broader role. Now, people who had trusted McDowell with their insurance needs could trust them with their financial futures as well.
RIA Coverages
Second, McDowell expanded their insurance offerings to other RIAs. We helped to facilitate this move by focusing elements like their internal blog and newsletter toward their fellow RIAs, with an emphasis on reminding prospective clients that McDowell occupied both spaces – insurance and financial advising, which made them well-suited to know what coverages an RIA would most need.
Local Position
Third, we pushed for them to utilize their hyperlocal positioning to increase their market share. During our research, we found time and again that McDowell’s target audience deeply cared about their community and about having an insurance or financial planning institution that did as well. We created a content strategy that accentuated their local presence, building connections, and solidifying impact where they were already most well known.