Individuality matters

Individuality Matters

Atom. Your logo. Your colours. Your bank

When I joined Atom, one of the key draws was having the freedom to create a bank that really was customer-obsessed, one that was taking decisions day in, day out, standing in the shoes of a customer. Possibilities of what could be, not what’s gone before. A clean sheet. No constraints.

So where do you start when you’re building a new bank? Well first off we needed an identity, what most people would see as a company logo. But not us. If we were going to have an identity, we wanted one that reflected our customer obsession. We were building a bank for ‘you’ (the customer) and not ‘us’ (the bank).

As a marketer, I’ve heard endless times the phrase ‘every customer is unique’ but when you think about it, hardly any businesses actually reflect this in what they deliver. Most organisations have distinctly formalised identities, one that doesn’t change and one that certainly doesn’t recognise their customers’ uniqueness. Building a digital bank frees the mind, no longer are you constrained by static imagery, set colour-ways or prescribed ways of behaving, your identity can morph and change, a bit like Google’s does.

But even this doesn’t go far enough for us.

In digital, people are constantly personalising their experiences, curating and creating their own content, tailoring to reflect what they want to see and how they want to see it. It’s what we’ve come to expect when we enter the digital world. Not so in banking.

Recognising that people are different and don’t conform is an intrinsic part of Atom’s DNA. We want our identity to reflect the fact that all our customers are individuals and different. It struck us that we shouldn’t therefore be creating an ‘Atom’ identity, we should be creating a unique identity for each of our customers.

So, when you join Atom, you’ll get your very own logo – yours and only yours to keep, no-one else will have one the same. Alongside the logo sits your colour palette, driving the visual experience you get when you’re using our app. You’ll also be able to call the bank what you want to call it (within reason!) – Lisa’s bank, Peter’s bank, Anil’s bank, Roberto’s bank… the more identities the merrier as far as we’re concerned!

Reflecting our individuality isn’t just a digital world thing, it’s basic human nature. When we move to a new place, we decorate. We tell a story of who we are through our clothes, hair, make-up, tattoos. We choose what we share on social media to reflect how we want to be seen by friends. Expressing our individuality is an important part of what makes us tick, we want to be able to make our mark on the world and those around us.

Designing a banking experience like no other is what I came here to do and creating an identity that reflects our customers’ uniqueness is just the beginning. You can expect every aspect of what we do here at Atom to be driven by our obsession to build a bank for you, not us.