Adrenaline Surges by Helping Banks Define Their Brands

Branding work done by Adrenaline for Truist. (Courtesy of Adrenaline)

A company’s brand is more than the sum of its parts. It’s more than just signs and logos. A brand is primarily an experience that involves telling stories that reflect a company’s values. And that is what drives Adrenaline, a growing brand experience company with offices in Portsmouth, Toronto and Atlanta that primarily serves banks and credit unions.

“We provide an A to Z offering of rebranding and identity marketing through to network analytics of where you should place a branch or whether to spend a bit more money in one geographic area for renovations and enhancements,” says Kevin Johnson, who was elevated to executive vice president in September after joining the company in 2019 as CFO. Adrenaline has grown 300% in the last five years and added 100 employees.

Adrenaline’s Portsmouth office, from which Johnson works, focuses on construction management, conversion and merchandising, program management, as well as interior architectural and environmental graphic design. For example, Adrenaline participated in the conversion program that emerged after SunTrust merged with BB &T to become Truist, the sixth largest commercial bank in the country. The project included site survey work and figuring out how to apply the new design to the respective bank branches, Johnson says. “One day you’re driving by and it’s SunTrust, then overnight. Adrenaline and its partners go in and the next day it’s Truist,” he says, adding this transition included bringing in the newly branded furniture and replacing carpet and wall paintings.

Johnson sees opportunity for Adrenaline to surge as banks and credit unions seek to differentiate themselves in a competitive marketplace. A July 2023 survey conducted by Adrenaline asked banks and credit unions how their brand impacts business, and 75% said it “critically impacts their business value.” Yet 66% of them have not rebranded since before COVID.

Johnson says he expects Adrenaline will increase its workforce by 5% to 10% in the coming year. “We’ve gotten to a good place where we’ve really started to discover some real great economies of scale, not only in our people and our systems, but in our strategic partnerships.”

For more information, visit adrenalinex.com.