ROLE

ACD/Writer & UX Writer

AGENCY

Small Army

VIBES

Decency & Neighborliness

TEAM

ACD/Writer: Jess Tardy

ACD/AD: Joe Krikava

AD: Dana Feruzzi

Producer: Sylvain Lucarelli

CAPABILITIES:

Brand repositioning

Visual Identity Design

Website UX Copy

Radio Ad Script

Radio Production

Small Towning

Country Bank, a 170-year-old Western Massachusetts institution, needed to compete with sleek retail banking chains without losing their authentic small-town values. The challenge was translating their commitment to genuine customer service into a complete rebrand and digital experience that felt as personal as walking into their local branch.

As part of Small Army’s creative team, I led the language strategy for the complete rebrand while our art director handled the visual design. I developed the “Neighbors First” tagline and positioning that became the rallying cry for the brand transformation, working to bake manners into every piece of UX copy and interface language.

Our insight was simple: while other banks obsessed over digital transformation, Country Bank’s real advantage was refusing to choose between modern convenience and old-fashioned courtesy. The “Neighbors First” positioning became the foundation for everything—from error messages to form instructions to account notifications.

In addition to the high-visibility out of home ads and digital campaign assets, I carefully rewrote the entire online user experience for Country Bank’s digital homebase to feel genuinely neighborly: error messages that actually apologized instead of blaming users, confirmation copy that celebrated customer wins, and interface language that talked to real people with real financial concerns.

I also produced, wrote, and voiced their radio ads and hold music, casting my actual small-town friends and neighbors in a few of the spots because the neighborly voice needed to carry through every single touchpoint. The whole approach won top honors at both NEFMA and MITX, which felt pretty great—turns out authentic courtesy still beats sterile efficiency messaging everytime when it comes to building actual relationships with customers.