Kirby Williams was a copywriter for a long time, and owner of the ad agency Kirby & Co. in Hot Springs. But rhyme is in his blood.
“I kind of pretend to be a banker,” said Williams, who is planning to retire as executive vice president of marketing for Stone Bank next year. “My mother was a poet who wrote a couple of books of poetry.”
Doggerel and limericks are more in his line, Williams said.
So when Stone Bank President Nick Roach wanted a visual marketing element to catch the eyes of people in the 46,000 cars that pass the bank’s new branch at 12615 Chenal Parkway in west Little Rock, Williams thought of Burma Shave.
The shaving cream brand made its name with funny rhyming poems on sequential signs along roadways from the late 1920s to the early 1960s.
“I don’t think I remember actually seeing Burma Shave signs, but I’ve been in the advertising business long enough to see it referenced a lot,” Williams said. “I thought it might be a fun way to put across the concept that there’s something new here. We locate them at the stoplight at Markham and Chenal Parkway. People are either whizzing by at 50 miles an hour and don’t see it at all, or they’re stopped at the light and it gives them 30 seconds of entertainment.”
Williams said several sets of messages have greeted motorists. One example, written by Williams:
YOU’VE SEEN OUR SIGNS
HERE ON THE SHOULDER
ISN’T IT TIME
TO BANK BOULDER?
“Bank Boulder,” Stone Bank’s slogan, was the brainchild of Stephanie Alderdice, the marketer who bought Kirby & Co. in 2016 and rebranded the Hot Springs agency as Sixty-One Celsius.
Williams and Alderdice were working on rebranding what had been Ozark Heritage Bank of Mountain View, which was looking to expand with a name that sounded less regional. The new name referenced Stone County, “but I also saw a lot of possibilities to spin off that,” Williams said.
Stone Bank bought the old Bank OZK headquarters this year for $9.5 million with plans for remodeling the 1989 structure. Bank OZK had a branch on the ground floor, now a Stone Bank location.
“We’re completely renovating the first and second floors, putting a new facade on and doing all new signage,” Williams said. He said a tenant — Shelter Insurance — occupies the third floor. “The last thing we’re doing is renovating the branch.”
East Harding Construction and WDD Architects of Little Rock are leading the project. “We’re asking them to be creative,” Williams said. “They’re working on a new entryway that is going to be pretty striking.”
Once the building is complete late next year, it will house about 115 Stone employees, with growing room for about 35 more, he said.
Williams, who moved to Little Rock after a 35-year run in Hot Springs, said he’s looking forward to retirement. “We have a little place on the Little Red River up in Heber Springs where I’m hoping to spend a lot of time. But all our children and grandchildren are in Little Rock, so that’s where we’ll keep our primary residence.”
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