Eat In or Dine Out: Agency Partnerships and Ice Cream with Jill Amato

Why would a bank build their brand around a mountain goat? Let Jill Amato, SVP, Head of Marketing & Community Banking at MountainOne, tell you why her bank decided to do exactly that.

Jill is Jen Harrington’s guest on the newest episode of Eat In or Dine Out — the show where top marketing leaders step into Jen’s kitchen for fresh, unprocessed conversations about how to build great internal teams and hire the right agency partners.

In addition to explaining why MountainOne is all in on Mo the Mountain Goat, Jill shares her takes on…

• Using AI as a tool to expand creative experimentation.
• Building a bond between your agency and your in-house team.
• 🔥Hot take alert: Why whipped cream doesn’t belong on ice cream.

P.S. Don’t forget to follow HATCH on LinkedIn to catch upcoming episodes!

 

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TRANSCRIPT 

Jen: Hello and welcome to my show, Eat In or Dine Out. I’m Jen Harrington and this is my kitchen. In this show, we bring in incredible marketing people to talk about their teams, whether their internal teams, eat in or they partner with agencies, dine out. And today I have a great guest. I’m very, very excited to introduce my friend Jill Amato. Jill, welcome to the show.

Jill: Thank you for having me.

Jen: Jill and I have known each other for ever. No, that’s a little long. We’ve known each other for 20 years. And that means that I have been doing bank marketing for 20 years. Wow. That’s impressive. Yeah. As have you.

Jill: As have I. That’s right. So, at multiple banks. You were at Boston Private Bank.

Jill: I was.

Jen: And then you actually went to the Dark Side, the credit union.

Jill: I did. I did.

Jen: And you did a little stint there.

Jill: I  live to tell the truth. Yes.

Jen: And then you now you are at Mountain One Bank which is our client and and we love you and we love working together. The premise of the show is eat in or dine out. So you are going to have to choose whether you want to talk about your internal team or partnering with very very fun people like me. What would you like to do? Eat in or dine out?

Jill: I think you know what I’m going to say. Dine out.

Jen: Dine out. You heard it here. We are dining out.

Jen: Look at what we have here. Jill, any guess on what we’re going to be having today?

Jill: I have a very strong suspicion. It might be my favorite thing, which is ice cream.

Jen: Ice cream. So, we got to wait for the ice cream to come. But while we are waiting for our delivery, let’s talk a little bit about agency partnerships. You’ve managed many of them over many years and you’re very very good at it. And I think one of the things that is your superpower among many things is you’re really really good at helping agencies understand the culture of the brand that they are working with. So I thought maybe you could start by talking a little bit about how you do that. How do you sort of bring agency partners in?

Jill: Sure. I think, you know, at Mountain One, we’re lucky because our brand is so full of life. And so, we’re able to…

Jen: It’s very full of life. It’s the greatest of all time.

Jill: It may be the greatest of all time. Yeah. So, we’re able to infuse it into employee culture and do a lot with it with our people.

Jen: And your people really do love the Mountain One brand.

Jill: It’s a very, very special thing. At Mountain One, we have this magic brand that really creates unity across our whole organization. We have a unique footprint. So, we’re not physically together, which is common.

Jen: Especially now because I feel like everybody’s sort of virtual

Jill: Yeah, we’re on Zoom, we’re on teams, we’re doing all of that. We have locations in the Southshore, we have locations in the Berkshires, locations in Pioneer Valley now with our insurance agency and with all of that and being so spread out, it’s really special to have something that brings us together. Yes. So, it really serves as that source of unity for Mountaineers at Mountain One. And so that’s been really special.

Jen: I mean, because I know you work with other partners and you have I mean, you have a lot of different people sort of in your ecosystem.

Jill: Yeah, we do.

Jen: So, how do you bring them in and help them understand the culture there?

Jill: Well, I think one of the most fun ways we do it is by literally bringing them in and having a lot of facetime because as important as virtual is, if you don’t have the facetime, you’re really lacking that human connection. So, we try to do that as much as we can. What we’ve been able to do is we have once a year we bring all of our mountaineers together for a very special

Jen: I’ve been to this.

Jill: very special offsite event. We meet in the middle. We bus everybody in. So much enthusiasm. We’re celebrating our people, but we bring our agency partner in and we invite them into that environment because we want them to see the brand being brought to life in a very authentic way. And I think that has really helped not only give them the opportunity to meet some of the people. But see how it all works and comes to life. So, that’s been really
great. But mostly, it’s staying connected. It’s two-way sharing. It’s not just us assigning work and expecting it back. It’s literally having an extension of our team at Hatch.

Jen: I think we’re getting a delivery. I can’t wait. Of ice cream.

Jill: And look who it is. Hey, Mo.

Jen: Hey, Mo. You really do very well with your hooves and whatnot.

Jill: Thank you so much.

Jen: Our Mountain One spokesgoat

Jill: The best.

Jen: And he brought us ice cream. I am very, very excited to be having ice cream with you today. This is ice cream from Bedford Farms, which is our little local ice cream place. But what I’m very excited to share is that it’s all your favorite flavors. So, let’s get some ice cream going. This looks actually very good. Now you’ll notice Jill, there are some accoutrements. But what is not here? Whipped cream.

Jill: Whipped cream.

Jen: Because why?

Jill: Because we don’t like whipped cream.

Jen: Because why?

Jill: Because not needed. Not necessary.

Jen: Unnecessary. Too hard to get to the ice cream. Too fluffy. Too too many things.

Jill: Yeah. Just gets in the way. It’s a distraction.

Jen: So this right here, I think, is a This is everything you love. I think this might be Yeah. brownie, coffee, and cookies.

Jill: Which makes it okay for the morning.

Jen: Yes, exactly. Exactly. It is the It is the breakfast of champions. So, there you go. Let’s scoop ourselves some ice cream.

Jill: Oh my god. Let’s do it.

Jen: Let’s keep talking. So, the Mountain One brand and even Mo is a pretty fun and creative um approach at branding. So, can you talk a little bit about why being fun and creative and banking is important?

Jill: Well, branding isn’t just about us and it’s important to break out of your own mold when you’re doing branding. You want to stand out and be unique. And if every bank is talking about products and

Jen: Every bank is talking about products

Jill: doing very similar messaging, you have an opportunity. And the opportunity is to be different and be memorable. And that’s something we’ve always prioritized at Mountain One with our…

Jen: But you guys are fun. I mean, it’s a little bit of a risk, don’t you think? Like, I mean, I remember coming in and working with you for the first time. I am trying.

Jill: Oh my god, so good.

Jen: I was just like, how many of these can we eat?

Jill: Don’t tell my kids. This is really special.

Jen: You guys always felt like you were willing to go as far as we could take the idea of Mo, which was really fun. And actually, and that was across the entire executive team, right? and your marketing team,

Jill: We were so fortunate because we had our CEO right in the room with us when we were doing all of these brand exercises, development, conversations, discussion, strategy. He was there for all of it. We had a board member with us. We had a couple members of senior management. And what was so wonderful during that process is how supportive they were of that idea of being bold for the sake of being memorable. And the one thing that stuck with me is, hey, we don’t want to take  ourselves too seriously and it’s okay to have fun with it to be a little weird.

Jen: So, over the course of your career, like, have you changed the way that you think about partnering with agencies or how do you sort of approach that kind of collaboration?

Jill: I think it takes a long time to build something. Yeah. And then once you build it, you don’t want to just start from scratch and build something new. You want to hold on it. Yes. And continue to evolve it. And that is something we’re doing at Mountain One. Yeah. And so we’ve been with this brand since 2019. Mo was born in the hills of the Berkshires in 2019. And that’s when he graced us with his presence and since then we have found new ways to bring that to life. We don’t want to do that and have to recreate that and start from scratch with a new partner. But in that partnership, we have new life all the time. Yeah. And I think that keeps it fresh. Um, and that’s good enough for us. I think the great thing about partnering with an agency is that you’re constantly bringing in or agencies in general. Yeah. We’re constantly bringing in new perspective because you’re exposed to more than just Mountain One Bank. You’re exposed to different industries, to different financial institutions and you can bring that knowledge back to us in, you know, a way that’s appropriate, but that benefits us. So, you don’t need a new agency partner to get new perspective. You just need an agency partner who is well-versed.

Jen: Having an opportunity to partner for a really long time is helpful for the agency. I mean, sometimes, I’m going be honest, we when we’re working together with with a client like you over a long period of time, it feels like our brand, too. You know, we feel like we’re part of it. And I and that’s probably a good thing and a bad thing. You know, there hopefully you you there’s some external perspective, but you start to feel a sense of ownership over the brand and the way that you’re working with clients. So,

Jill: Well, I feel the same way. Yeah. And I think the good outweighs the bad in that.

Jen: I’m going to switch gears a little bit and I think you need some more,

Jill: Which means we switch gears on flavors.

Jen: We’re going to shift gears on flavors, too. Okay. It’s going to get messy. I want to talk a little bit about a new type of partnership. Okay. That is so good. Wait, that was really good ice cream. Let’s talk about A1 steak sauce. No, AI.

Jill: Oh, okay.

Jen: Because in addition to being really creative and very experimental with Mo, you’ve also been very open to AI as we continue to push the limits of where Mo can go and what he can do. So, can you talk a little bit about how you guys are thinking about AI? I mean, you think about it more broadly at the bank than just creative.

Jill: We do. It’s in such a a tough area because it’s very fluid and banking is all about rules and regulations and so

Jen: a lot of regulation.

Jill: We have to play within, you know, the boundaries and so that can be a little bit limiting. Yeah. But that’s okay because there’s so much to learn and absorb. It’s good to have something that paces us. Anyway, on the creative side…

Jen: we’ve had fun with it.

Jill: We’ve been able to have a lot of fun and

Jen: but you guys were so open to letting us try some stuff, too, which was really fun. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you,

Jill: Thank you. No, it’s been a fun exercise for us because you can take a smaller budget. Yeah. And play and see what you end up with and test and learn. And you can do that a lot more with AI than if you were to have to partner with a lot of different production firms or, you know, creatives to to produce work. And and I think it’s been able it’s been able to act as as sort of like a sounding board for us to say, we have this idea. What would this look like? and we can mock it up and see.

Jen: Can you talk a little bit about when you guys are thinking about planning for the year or sort of key initiatives and things sort of how do you make the decision whether to keep the work in house, right? So to do it yourselves because I would imagine you have such an incredible you have an incredible team, right?

Jill: We do.

Jen: that they’re very very interested in trying some new things or doing some different things. How do you make the decision when to keep something in house and when to use any partner, not not just us, obviously.

Jill: It’s capacity and cost, right?

Jen: Talk a little bit about that.

Jill: We have um a very small and mighty marketing team. I always say I have a staff of three. Everybody has a different focus and the workload is is always heavy. Um but we do have one person in particular, Ethan, who is extremely creative and he does do a lot of the creative work. He does a lot of the things we put on social and a lot of internal and external communications to support PR and um product promotion. And it’s been great because the foundation is built at the agency level and then as we have the capacity Ethan can take that and do very creative things with it within the brand guidelines within the guidelines of what has been built. And then when it’s something new and exciting and big and we think there’s going to be a lot of um evolvement from it, we absolutely want to go to the agency because we want it to we want to build the foundation of that new piece.

Jen: Actually, and you have you have some you have some news.

Jill: Um the other big thing going on at Mountain One, there’s so much going on. Um but one of the big things is that we are currently undergoing a new partnership at the holding company level. We are merging with Mechanics Bank Corp.

Jen: So exciting.

Jill: It’s very exciting. And a lot of um good things will come out of that for for everybody involved. But it’s very exciting news because our team, our family grows and we love that.

Jen: Yes. I love growth and success in in every way. So that’s good. That’s great. Congratulations. Thank you.

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