Two days ago Advertising Age ran a story with the headline Bank Marketing Fails to Reassure Wary and Befuddled Customers. The story quotes Douglas Berlon, global practice leader for financial services at Gallup saying “Bankers are just so generally conservative, so inward looking and so worried about taking hits for spending money on advertising. But there is an absolute opportunity here.” Mr. Berlon’s comment reminded me of what we often tell our clients: Everything you do and everything you say may either strengthen or diminish your brand. That also goes for what you aren’t doing or saying. If you aren’t managing perceptions of your brand, someone else is.
That is certainly true these days with the entire industry under such intense scrutiny. Look at how the media has fueled public perceptions about banks who participate in the TARP program. TCF Financial announced plans yesterday to return the government’s money. “Participation in TARP has created a competitive disadvantage for TCF” said TCF CEO William Cooper. Northern Trust, who was called out in the press for its entertainment spending, also said it would return the money “as quickly as prudently possible.” I wonder if they would have had to make these choices if they’d been more proactive in talking to their customers about their involvement in the first place.
Not every bank has been quiet. A spokesperson from PNC was quoted in the Advertising Age article as saying “This environment calls for us to articulate what it is we’re doing, and that is that we’ve never stopped lending.” Are you articulating what you’re doing? What are your words and actions communicating to your customer?
[...] the issue of having conversations with your customers (a topic we discussed previously here and here) – to include prospective customers/members and the community as a whole. And in reality, these [...]