If you don’t love your brand, nobody else will.
Whether you like it or not, you have a brand. Whether intentional or by happenstance, your brand is being built. The real question is whether or not it’s the brand you want it to be.
Let’s be honest. To most people, banks are utilitarian. A commodity. All the same. An emotionless experience. Brands are different. Even a bank can build a meaningful, authentic, memorable brand. And we can help.
We’re a strong bank, we don’t really need a brand.
64 percent of consumers say that shared values help them create a trusted relationship with a brand. 1
64 percent of consumers say that shared values help them create a trusted relationship with a brand. 1
Brand
absolutely
matters.
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Even the best banks benefit from building brand (how’s that for alliteration). Brand can build trust, win loyalty and charm the pants off customers. It creates an emotional connection between you and your customers that lasts longer and goes deeper than any product promotion ever will. Brand separates you from your competition because it’s a direct reflection of who you are and why it matters. No matter how good you are, a brand can make you better.
Well that’s nice, but we already do advertising.
Advertising is not branding.
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It can be a part of branding but, as we all know, it is often a short-term tactic to reach a short-term goal. Branding is much bigger. Branding is trying to accomplish strategic goals through every experience a customer has with you. Environment, online presence, and yes, even traditional advertising mediums are all part of a proper branding effort.
Just because you have an idea to promote or run an ad here and there does not mean you are effectively using your marketing budget or building your brand. Branding is long term. Branding is deliberate. Brand impacts everything an organization does. It’s not a project.
We’re not big enough to worry about branding.
Building a brand is not exclusive to a particular asset size.
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No matter how big your marketing budget is, investing in brand pays dividends. Just because you’re not doing so does not mean your brand isn’t being built. People in the community are forming their own idea about you, or perhaps they’re not even thinking of you at all. Wouldn’t you like to affect what people think and feel about you? That, my friend, is branding, and it is for all organizations who’d like to be successful.
We already have a logo and a tagline.
Your logo
isn’t a
brand.
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While a logo and a tagline are wonderful, they do not constitute a brand. Building a brand is much deeper. And while a quality brand identity and guidelines are imperative, it will take more than that to build a meaningful, long-lasting brand.
We don’t want to change our name.
It only takes 10 seconds for consumers to form an impression of your brand. 2
It only takes 10 seconds for consumers to form an impression of your brand. 2
Whatever your name,
you still need
a brand.
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Brand is a shortcut to personality. It encompasses the name, the look, the attitude, the shining uniqueness of your bank. A new name is a great time to build a new brand. But you can build your brand with the name you’ve got. All it takes is a little discovery to see who you are, what makes you tick, what inspires your organization, and why it matters.
It costs too much to build a brand. We don’t have the resources.
The real cost is
in not investing
in brand.
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Yes, it takes resources to build and develop a meaningful brand, but it’s hard to hold a place in a potential customer’s mind these days. Familiarity and emotional connection to a brand creates trust, and trust… well, you know how valuable that is.
I don’t have the time to focus on brand.
Building a brand
definitely takes time.
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And it can seem a bit overwhelming. The remarkable thing is, once you’ve spent the time discovering, defining, delivering and developing a quality brand, you’ll find that you can be much more focused and much more effective in all your marketing. It may not give you more hours in a day, but, in the long run, it might just save you some time.
Think you have a
strong bank brand?
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Take this six question quiz and let’s find out what your brand is made of.
No matter where your brand is, we’re here to help.
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Whether you’re ready to do a full rebrand or you just want to talk shop, we’d love to hear from you. In the meantime, enjoy some of these beautiful bank brands. Have more questions? Want to talk branding? We’re here.