Folding In A look at how Baird kept key Hilliard Lyons businesses elevated during the company merger
2019 was a monumental year for Baird. It was not only the firm's 100th anniversary, but at the end of 2018 they had announced that Hilliard Lyons would become part of the Baird family. There's a lot of work involved in a successful merger, and that includes making sure that key businesses are still attainable to current and future clientele.
Overview
Project Type:
Landing Pages
Role and Contributions:
Wireframing, Visual Design, Front-End Development
Client & Team:
Hilliad Lyons
Chief Marketing Officer, Creative Services Director, Capital Markets Manager, PWM Marketing Manager, Project Manager, Editorial Manager
The Challenge
Hilliard Lyons officially became part of Baird around April 2019, but the websites weren't set to shut down until Fall 2019. With the acquisition came the necessity to continue the promotion of key businesses such as:
- Hilliard Lyons Trust Company
- Wealth & Family Office
- Business Owner Solutions
It wasn't enough to just throw together a quick page on rwbaird.com. As the relationships with the individuals who ran these divisions were still in development we needed to show them the level of service that could be expected from Baird. Since, rwbaird.com was still not responsive we opted to go down a custom route that would be influenced by the design we were working towards for the firm website.
Where do you go from here?
Kick-off with working groups
I met separately with the marketing liaisons for each business to understand the needs of these new pages. We had to be mindful of the fact that we wouldn't be able to produce self-contained websites since our technical infrastructure wouldn't be able to support that. However, we also wanted to make sure we had substantial presences for these businesses as they folded into Baird. Finally, we also had to keep in mind that their audiences had already gone through a website relaunch recently, and we didn't want to shake things up too much. When we finally come to a consensus that these would be single-page solutions with the goals of:
- Clearly showed the integration into Baird
- Shared design cohesiveness
- Accommodate existing content from each business site
- Highlight teams
- Emphasize the high-end service each business provided
Wireframes
Since Hilliard had previously been a competitor I didn't feel compelled to do a lot of research. Knowing that these businesses had been happy with what they had I studied their existing properties and tried to reconstruct them in a way that worked for Baird.
Features
High End Photography
To communicate the high-end service level I gravitated towards higher-end photography when possible. With the content staying the same it was one of the major changes we could make with the migration.
White Space
Newer Baird properties featured more white space and simplistic approach to layout. This would noticeably tone down the pages from how they appeared on the Hilliard property, but also make them appear more like Baird properties.
Parallax Team Callout
We had struggled with the best way to represent the teams on these pages, but since these were custom solutions that meant there was no content management system to support future edits so we opted to link to PDFs of each team. To elevate the appearance of team section I used a parallax zone with copy overlay.
Content Callouts
I utilized buttons and content cards when possible to elevate thought leadership and other announcements.
Maps
Finally, I also introduced map areas into each page to emphasize to users that even though they may be Baird companies they would still be able to find these businesses in their backyards.
Results
When I began this project I was extremely nervous, but we were able to successfully launch all three pages within a two-week period in early October. Considering the tight turnaround I was amazed at how smoothly this project unfolded. One of the main reasons I think this was a success was because there was a willingness to compromise from all parties to get this done and produce the best option we could knowing full well we could build upon it in the future.
As always, I do wish there was some more lead time. Unfortunately, it was a very busy year and it seems like the priority of these pages got lost in the shuffle. In the end what matters is that the businesses were happy and we were able demonstrate our value to them.
Current State Update
Baird's firm website officially relaunched May 2021. The properties overall didn't change too much, as we were able to rebuild the designs within the new system as they existed. However, after futher evaluation the map feature was retired in favor of embedded Google Maps, which could be more easily implemented and updated by the larger marketing team.
