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

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

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

1|Page

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

2|Page

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

3|Page

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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 Statement We 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 a start up commercial bank which primarily operated in 1 of the 21 counties in the state of

Fulton Financial Corporation: History www.fult.com/aboutus/history.asp

4|Page

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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 community banking business model for the holding company and its affiliated 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 of Woodstown 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. At the 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 Central Regions 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,

5|Page

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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 bank that 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 the same community banking business model as The Bank and the other affiliate banks. Somerset Valley Bank became part of Fulton Financial Corporation in 2005. Somerset Valley 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 northwestern regions 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
6|Page

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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 corporations strategic plans and supported through the affiliates business 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.

7|Page

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
Employee Engagement
Net Employee Promotor Employee Satisfaction Employee Retention

Customer Experience
FDIC Market Share Customer Net Promotor Core Household Growth Services Per Household

Organizational Efficiency
Efficiency Ratio

Financial Performance
Net Income Growth

LEAN Goals

Deposit Growth

Loan Growth

Net Interest Margin

Non Performing Assets Non interest Income/Total Revenue/Expense

As a result of the implementation and execution of these strategies, The Bank and Skylands Community Bank have been able to attract new deposits, gain market share and grow both retail and commercial households. The economic impact on our area, specifically in the commercial real estate sector has presented us with challenges over the past 3 years. Thequality of our existing assets in our portfolio coupled with slow loan demand has significantly hindered our growth. However, we have begun to see signs of a recovery over the past year and the strategies put into place in our business plans have helped us balance our growth in other areas of our company.

Financial Condition
Metrics 12/31/10 Total Assets ($000) Net Interest Margin Net Charge Offs/Loans Non Performing Assets/Assets Non interest Income/Total Revenue Non interest Income/Non interest Expense The Bank $2,099,191 4.13% 1.18% 3.69% 20.5% 35.9% Skylands Community Bank $1,362,439 3.99% .75% 2.74% 13.5% 25.8%

8|Page

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
Market Share
Market Share as of 6-30-11

Fulton Financial Corporation has 1.70% of the FDIC Market Share and 4.22% of the Branch % Share as of the end of June, 2011. In comparison, The Bank has 2.42% of the FDIC Market Share and 4.20% of the Branch % Share while Skylands Community Bank has 3.37% of the FDIC Market Share and 1.74% of the Branch % Share. In this reporting period, 8 of the 9 counties at The Bank increased % of Household Share to 3.02%. Skylands Community Bank had 3 of their 6 counties increase % of Household Share to 1.74% and FFC realized 2.55% of Household Share.2 In the same timeframe, Fulton Financial Corporation has grown retail households year over year by 1.47%; The Bank has grown retail households by 3.83% and Skylands Community Bank by 1.51%. The Bank has the highest household growth year over year compared to all of the affiliate banks under the FFC umbrella. The commercial household growth has been strong for the holding company and all the affiliate banks. FFC has grown commercial households year over year by 6.07% during this timeframe, The Bank by 4.13% and Skylands Community Bank by 5.11%. The following page illustrates a map of the states in which Fulton Financial Corporation currently has a branch presence. You will see from the chart the current seven affiliate banks that we operate today in the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia. The chart on the far right is the state of the New Jersey. Skylands Community Bank branches are highlighted in red and The Bank branches are highlighted in yellow. You can

FDIC Summary of Deposits, Market Share (2011) http://www2.fdic.gov/sod/sodMarketBank.asp?barItem=2

9|Page

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

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.
3

Fulton Financial Corporation: Locations www.fult.com/aboutus/locations.asp

10 | P a g e

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

11 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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 in ten respondents were satisfied with Fulton Financial Corporation this quarter.

FFC Top Box = 95%

Benchmark Top Box = 80%

ath Power Consulting 2011 FFC Post Transaction Survey Report www.athpowerconsulting.com

12 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
If we do not put a brand strategy in place, we could potentially loose our existing customers and have a harder time attracting new customers because todays competitive 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
13 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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 Awareness Respondents asked which banks come to mind with no prompting or assistance. Aide Awareness Respondents are given a list of bank names and asked which they are familiar 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
5

The Melior Group Fulton Financial Corporation Bank Awareness Study Fall 2010

14 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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 2009 The Bank Skylands 2% 3% 2010 9% 3% 2009 39% 55% 2010 58% 53% 2009 6% 3% 2010 25% 13% 2012 Combined Awareness Goal 2012 45% 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

15 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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 The Bank 37,496 Skylands 12,481 Combined 49,977

Current Commercial Households The Bank 12,247 Skylands 8,578 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 Mauriello NJ 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
6

Fulton Financial Corporation Retail and Commercial Household reports Internal Use

16 | P a g e

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

17 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
The following is a timeline of the project.

8/29/11 Purpose - Project team meets for first time to discuss creative concepts and beginning planning stages for media buy. Goal - Discuss concepts, initial media plan & budget. Follow up - Due to team by 9/8/11

9/15/11 Purpose - Present media brand strategy to the FFC Senior Managmeent eam which outlines our objective, strategy, timeline, creative and meida plan . Goal - Gain approval for proposed budget. Follow up - 9/20/11 Book media, communicate to affiliate Senior Mgt media plan.

9/8/11 Purpose- Present 4 creative concepts to CEO & President of The Bank and Skylands Community Bank. Goal - Gain agreement on (1) concept to move forward. Share inital media plan & budget with group and gain buyin for proposed budget. Follow up - Present to FFC Senior Management for final approval on 9/15/11.

10/24/11 11/28/11 Purpose Implement brand media campaign across NJ footprint. Goal 10/24/11 launch for TV, print, radio, outdoor, online & web Follow up track media buy placement through end of campaign 11/28/11

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
18 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
strategic and financial elements of the campaign, define the measurement of success and lead the project as the Project Manager from the beginning to the end. In my role today, marketing/brand campaigns are developed centrally; based on market conditions, opportunity in the marketplace and the needs of the Corporation. All of the planning, creative concepts and media are chosen for each affiliate. My role is to communicate the elements of the campaignsto the employees at our affiliate and when necessary, communicate any process changes, customer incentives, employee incentives and/or operational guidelines that will correspond with said campaign. Leading this particular project will give me visibility to FFC Senior Management and also to my peers that will work with me on this project. Professionally this project will help me gain more knowledge and insight from our Brand Managers and Media Buyer about how and why we choose the media mediums we currently use for campaigns and challenge us to look beyond what we do today. The most impact for this project will come from the adoption of the components of this project which will serve as the catalyst for a new standard and guideline for creating a branding strategy for the rest of our affiliate banks.

FINANCIAL IMPACT:
In order for us to effectively impact the markets in New Jersey with our new brand media campaign, we will need to allocate additional marketing dollars to the New Jersey banks. The new brand media spend will cost us $830,000 for production and media. The proposal will include using the remaining marketing dollars in the current Skylands and The Bank budgets that was previously allocated for a product promotion in Q4 of 2011. Those dollars total $200,000;we will recommend an additional $325,000 be re-allocated from our other affiliate banks from their current central marketing budget. The actual dollars that are not in our current

corporate marketing budget that are needed to fund this project is $305,000.

19 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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
7

Fulton Financial Corporation Household Summary Distribution Report Internal Use

20 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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 Estimated Impressions Total Cost:$125,660 3,211,123

o We use Gross Rating Points (GRP) x the Universe Estimate to calculate our Gross Impressions. 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
21 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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:$ 7,425 379,317

Total Estimated Impressions

o We use the estimated total circulation of each publication x 2.5 pass along rate to calculate 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 Estimated Impressions

Total Cost:$347,492 5,579,085

o We use the estimated total circulation for each newspaperx 2.5 pass along rate to calculate 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 Estimated Impressions

Total Cost:$126,010 675,100

22 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
o We use the same ratings system as Television. Gross Ratings Points (GRP) x the Universe Estimate to calculate our Gross Impressions.

Out of Home o BillBoard Frequency: 8 weeks Total Estimated Impressions Total Cost: $ 66,684 2,088,020

o Impressions equal the estimated number of cars that drive by the outdoor billboard in a 24 hour period.

Online

Frequency: 8 weeks Total Estimated Impressions

Total Cost: $ 39,180 40,524,819

o We buy Impressions based on the frequency of the placement of the online ads and 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

23 | P a g e

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

24 | P a g e

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

25 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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 2012 2013 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.
26 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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:
27 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
Retail Customer Satisfaction Survey: the primary goal of this survey is to ask questions that 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 and services 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 Account Open 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 customers relationships 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
8

ath Power Consulting Fulton Financial Corporation 2011 Retail Customer Satisfaction Survey www.athpowerconsulting.com 9 ath Power Consulting Fulton Financial Corporation 2011 Account Open Survey www.athpowerconsulting.com 10 ath Power Consulting Fulton Financial Corporation 2011 Post Transaction Survey www.athpowerconsulting.com

28 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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 Customer Net Promoter Score Customer Overall Satisfaction Score Likelihood for Repurchase 2011 Benchmark 73% 95% 65%

The Customer Net Promoter Score is defined as the number of customers surveyed when asked 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 Score is defined a single summary question, how satisfied are you with your overall experience.

Likelihood for Repurchase is defined as the number of customer surveyed when asked the question, 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

29 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
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 Media TELEVISION Frequency (Both Banks) 4 weeks (various programming on USA, TNT, FX, Nick, Bravo, CMT, TBS) 24 31 7

November 14 21

NCC Media

30 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
4 weeks Various programming on USA, ESPN, TBS, Bravo, TNT, Food, History, TLC, CSN 4 Weeks (News only)

Comcast Spotlight WPVI- 6 ABC

October Media BUSINESS PUBLICATIONS Mercer Business SJ Magazine SJ Business People Philadelphia Biz Journal New Jersey Business Frequency (Both Banks) 1 insertion 1 insertion 1 insertion 1 insertion 1 insertion 24 31 7

November 14 21

October Media NEWSPAPER

Atlantic City Press Bridgetown Evening News Camden Courier Post Cherry Hill Sun, Haddonfield Sun and Voorhees Sun 3 weeks- Sunday 3 weeks- Monday 3 weeks- Sunday 3 weeksWednesday (3 paper combo)

November 31 7 14 21

Frequency

24

31 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
Current of AbseconPleasantville and Current of Galloway Twp Gloucester County Times Medford Central Record Princeton Packet (6 papers) (Allentown Messenger, Cranberry Press, Princeton Packet, Lawrenceville Ledger, Hamilton-Robbinsville Observer, Windsor Heights Herald) Salem Today's Sunbeam Trenton Times Philadelphia Inquirer Washington Township Times Bridgewater Courier News Easton Express Times Newark Star-Ledger (Somerset/Hunterdon, Sussex/Warren and Middlesex Zones) Hunterdon County Democrat Morristown Daily Record 3 weeksWednesday (2 paper combo) 3 weeks- Sunday 3 weeks- Thursday

3 weeks ( 6 paper ComboThursday/Friday)

3 weeks- Sunday 3 weeks- Sunday 3 weeks- Sunday 1 week 3 weeks- Sunday 3 weeksWednesday 3 weeks- Sunday 3 weeks- Thursday (Forced 2 paper combo) 3 weeks- Sunday

October Media RADIO WMGK-FM WMMR WKXW- FM/NJ 101.5 co branded with SCB (SCB 40% / TB 60%) 4 weeks 9 spots/week 4 weeks 10 spots/week 4 weeks 15 spots/week Frequency 24 31 7

November 14 21

32 | P a g e

Creating the New Jersey Branding Strategy for Fulton Bank of New Jersey
WSJO/SoJo 104.9 co branded with SCB (SCB 40% / TB 60%)

Metro Network- Traffic

4 weeks 15 spots/week 4 weeks PHL (50/wk), AC (30/wk), NJ (47/wk)

WRNJ WMGQ/Magic 98.3 WCTC/1450

8 weeks 4 weeks 15 spots/week 4 weeks 15 spots/week 4 weeks NY (17/wk), NJ (22/wk)

Metro Network- traffic

October Media OUTDOOR Interstate Outdoor (Rt 33) Astro Sign Company (Elmer branch) CBS Outdoor- Somerville CBS OutdoorHackettstown Frequency 24 31 7

November 14 21

8 weeks

8 weeks 8 weeks 8 weeks

October Media ONLINE National/Local web ads (geotargeting for specific counties) Facebook.com Frequency (Both Banks) 4 weeks (4,500,000 impressions) 8 week 24 31 7

November 14 21

33 | P a g e

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

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

34 | P a g e