Jane Bowman
Chief Marketing Officer, South Shore Bank
Age: 56
Industry experience: 1 month
Jane Bowman had spent most of her career in the media industry before joining Weymouth-based South Shore Bank a month ago. But even though she’s new to banking, Bowman sees similarities between the industries: from providing products and services that affect personal lives to being in the midst of change and disruption. Bowman had worked at Comcast, helping the cable television company build its regional advertising business, and then spent more than 12 years at Boston Globe Media, where her work included business development, brand marketing, public relations and communications.
Bowman is now chief marketing officer at the $1.8 billion-asset South Shore Bank, which is rolling out a new logo and brand, “sharing success.” The brand was inspired by the bank’s performance with the Paycheck Protection Program and the community fund it established with PPP proceeds to help customers struggling to make rent and mortgage payments.
Q: Why did you decide to move into community banking?
A: It’s interesting because I’m not sure that it was simply: “Let me go into community banking.” After having met with people at the bank, I think it was: “Let me go into community banking if it’s South Shore Bank.” When I look at my background, I spent a lot of years in the media business advising brands on where to place their media dollars, how to get their message across. I actually worked with a lot of the regional and national banks and financial institutions in an advisory role, so it’s nice to be on that other side of the table where I get to be the decisionmaker, and people are making recommendations to me. At South Shore Bank, it’s an opportunity to be with a growing organization that is deeply committed to the communities that it serves.
Q: What perspectives can you bring from outside the industry?
A: What I bring is the idea of always being mindful that you’re in an industry where people have a lot of different choices. When they choose you, you’ve got to have this commitment to serving them in a way that maybe others aren’t. It’s that deep customer listening and then commitment. And we always have to be looking for ways to enhance people’s lives. We’re simplifying their lives, and we’re thinking about what do they need and where do they need us to be.
Q: What vision are you forming for marketing a community bank?
A: It’s really not just about being physically in a community. It goes back to how we enrich, how we enhance, how we help that community thrive. It’s really being embedded in the community. I think my vision for marketing South Shore Bank is really about that investment in the community. It’s not just in our marketing, it’s not just in our brand, but it’s in the way that we do business.
Our actions, our branding, they’re all going to take this concept of mutuality, that we’re in this together. Being still in a pandemic – hopefully coming out of a pandemic – people want connections, and we all need to be in this together in order for us to get to the other side. When I first started speaking to Jim Dunphy, the president, and Pam O’Leary, the COO who’s my boss, I saw that this idea of shared success and giving back to the community is part of their DNA. They think about it all the time. The brand will reflect that.
Q: Had the bank created the new brand before you joined?
A: Yes. A lot of that early work – brand identity, the new logo – that’s all been done. My job is to now take it and fly with it. I’ll probably make some tweaks along the way to what we’re actually doing and how it’s going to live and breathe, but that hard work has been done.
What’s interesting is often when brands change, they are trying to change the organization to be something. I feel with South Shore Bank, they are something, and the new brand is taking it and saying, “This is who we are.” It’s almost a little bit of a flip. South Shore Bank is modern. It’s got energy to it, and it’s got this really deeply rooted commitment to the community. I’m not sure that the marketing and the branding previously reflected that.
Q: What are some of your plans for getting the message out?
A: You’ll see starting a little later this spring a robust campaign talking about these concepts. You’ll see on all types of media that brand reflection come out. But what you’ll also see is that it’s not just about the advertising placements. Our people will be our brand advocates and will show up. So hopefully, as the world is opening up again, we’ll be back even more in the community, doing what we do best, which is showing up at events, showing up to help out.
And then the other thing that we’ll do is we’ll continue to listen. Are we evolving to meet the needs of consumers? Do we have the right products and services? Are we evolving to meet the needs of our community partners? That whole idea of sharing success through listening and learning.
Q: What are the goals for this campaign as well for your own role?
A: As a CMO, you have to put in the traditional thing: We want to grow awareness, we want to grow our reputation, we want to continue to retain clients and continue to grow. The bank is in a good place right now, and so I think as we evolve and we get the message out, we will continue to grow.
My personal goal as CMO is to really learn not only this business, but to get very much embedded into the South Shore community. I spent a lot of my career in Boston proper. Now it’s time to learn a whole new group of people. The South Shore isn’t far from Boston, and I certainly spent time there, but being really of the South Shore – which is what this job will let me do – is interesting to me, and I’m looking forward to that piece also.
Bowman’s Five Favorite Cities to Visit for a Weekend Trip
- Boston
- Philadelphia
- New York
- Baltimore
- London
