Chuck Williams: Synovus commercial is right; the banking company is truly here

“Here’s to here. To this place where we are. It is not there. It’s here. Here just feels right.”

Those words come right out of the first major Synovus television campaign in many years. The concept is brilliant.

In the here, the storm has eased and the waters have calmed. Here is a much better place than there. And Synovus has been there — and back.

It is all about here and now, as the commercial claims. And nobody knows more about here than Synovus, the Columbus-based regional banking company that survived the economic downturn labeled the Great Recession. If you owned banks, it was no recession; it was a full-blown depression.

Synovus is fortunate to be here.

That is what makes the commercial so powerful. The calm narrator is talking about “here” as images of 12th Street in downtown Columbus alongside the flagship Synovus bank, CB&T, appear on the screen. It shows neighborhoods, big city streets and country roads. Nothing more than here. A beautiful place it is here.

But the unsaid, underlying meaning of the commercial is plain: Here could easily translate into the here — and now.

Synovus made it to here when some of its peers didn’t. And that’s not lost on you as you watch the commercial.

The folks at Colonial Bank in Montgomery would love to be here. But they are gone like a stack of Benjamins in a tornado.

Synovus is here, fighting and clawing every day under the leadership of Kessel Stelling, a career banker grounded in the fundamentals of the business. And there are a lot of reasons Synovus, which operates banks in five states including Georgia and Alabama, is still here.

One, the company used a nearly $1 billion taxpayer-funded loan to get through the tough times. That debt has been repaid in full. But without the capital, Synovus might not be here.

Synovus is leaner than it was. That came with great pain, shutting down branches and reducing its workforce by laying off many people who are no longer employed here. It’s not the same company that was here before. It has more institutional investors than your father’s Synovus had. It has only three Columbus board members. If it were not for the cultural shift, Synovus might not be here.

It survived $200 million in losses from a loan to Sea Island Co. It’s a deal some investors who sued Synovus and settled out of court last year claim was made on a “golf course handshake deal.” Synovus survived the demise of one of its largest customers, Bill Heard. It survived a flood of bad real estate loans in the Florida and Atlanta markets.

Stelling and his executive team, a combination of old Synovus and new blood, got to the other side of this great economic crisis. The bank is profitable again after nearly three years of bleeding. It has nearly $21 billion in deposits on hand, smaller than the old Synovus, but still solid and healthy.

It is a well capitalized regional banking company.

“Here is where you are,” the voice on the commercial says. “Synovus, the bank of here.”

Yes it is.

This story was originally published September 22, 2014 at 2:50 PM with the headline "Chuck Williams: Synovus commercial is right; the banking company is truly here."