The Art of Avoiding National Branding
Posted by Doug Williams on December 17th, 2007
Discussion of branding – major, national brands in particular – is akin to a lively discussion of battle. The players are intriguing. Heroes and states engaged in a struggle for life and death tear at each other for wealth and power. Indeed, Sun Tzu is often referenced in marketing classes. Which is silly or inspiring depending on your viewpoint.
CUNA just released a white paper that takes a measured look at a nationwide credit union brand. Currently, major brands are struggling with how to engage customers more deeply and relevantly; it’s a little baffling that a national credit union branding campaign is something discussed.
A national branding campaign is expensive. It’s terribly wide. It requires an existing infrastructure. And technology is coming into existence design to create communities and thwart mass marketing.
For CU’s to engage in a national branding campaign is akin to storming onto the battlefield, weapons drawn. Without sufficient resources (if you’re in battle, that would be other people, and in business, that would be capital), the campaign is doomed to fail. And failure in the case of a national campaign is in terms of wasted dollars and wasted impressions. And in a movement with limited resources, failure is harder to absorb.
Not only is it expensive on the national media side, any branding campaign must be activated at a local level. Unless credit unions spend money in addition to the campaign (a rule of thumb is that activation is three times as costly as the sponsorship), there is no direct tie to the actual credit union, and the message is lost.
Control the Battlefield
In any great story of underdog triumph, strategy and cleverness trumps sheer strength. Leonidas knew not to fight the Persians on their terms and met the invading force at Thermopylea. Paris would’ve failed fighting the immortal Achilles head on.
It’s time credit unions stopped envying the mighty and, instead, become crafty and wise.
The solution lies apart from the Siren’s song of a national campaign. Credit unions should invest in creating real competitive advantages:- Improve infrastructure through shared branching and ATM networks
- Create community-specific products
- Train staff in the specific needs of the community and SEG
- Use social media to communicate deep, not wide
- Design branches to reflect the membership
- Revive the membership drive and go meet with SEGs
- Leverage annual meetings as a celebration of the CU and its members
- Invest in local businesses by using their services
That’s the credit union’s battle ground: local not national. Getting sucked into a national campaign is costly, difficult and ultimately, nearly impossible to win.
Doug,
I got goosebumps reading this.
You said: “Credit unions can do what banks do (provide services); banks cannot do what credit unions can do (know their members)”
You said it all, right there. That’s an Edward Filene statement if ever I’ve heard one. It’s as if you channelled him.
Thank you. That took courage.
Doug,
I agree that every credit union needs to learn from Leonidas at Thermopylae (cunning, courage, lots of cutting edge
Web sites, ahem, spears), but Leonidas still lost. Without the Athenian navy and the eventual mobilization of the the other Greeks, Herodotus would have been a brick-making slave and I’d probably be teaching my son to spell in some derivative of Dari.Don’t get me wrong, I ascribe to all eight of your points. Individual credit unions cannot, and should not, rely on anybody else to make their markets, but neither should they turn away well-crafted help.
Wow, the paper was intended to start a dialogue and that you did sir!
Point of clarification – the white paper is technically from the CUNA Marketing & Business Development Council.
In this “lively discussion of a branding battle, ” your bullets in this post here should be on the front lines.
Doug,
Most excellent post!
I especially appreciated your sage observation that national branding campaigns still need to be activated locally to be effective.
I’d even argue that the same thing is true on smaller scale regional, even local efforts. You have to deliver the brand experience at every point of individual member interaction, because that’s where a real brand, aka reputation, is built.
Largely for that reason, a national credit union branding campaign, is, I believe, doomed to fall short. We’re much better off fighting the fight locally.
I agree that new credit union members must come from investing time and energy into local communities. Credit unions can’t match the widespread marketing and branding initiatives of the larger banks. The message would most likely be lost in the clutter. We should focus on one member at a time.
Thanks for the responses.
@Ben: I think resources spent on local initiatives and training on local guerrilla marketing would be a tremendous use of resources. Even using the local chapters as staging points!
@Christopher: Thanks for the clarification. Definitely an important distinction!
@Bruce and Michael: It’s interesting to equate brand and promise, and at the local level, I’d rather see the people who can deliver – tellers, MSRs, back office staff – making the promises and delivering on them.
@Denise: Thanks for the kind words. I think CU’s need to realize they’re important in ways beyond what big brand banks (and even community banks) offer and use it as competitive advantage.
Yesterday’s conversation on Twitter was so good, I thought it would be worth sharing a few tidbits -
Matt Davis the CU Warrior said:
Shari Storm of Verity CU said:
Jeff Hardin” the CU Communicator said:
Morriss Partee of EverythingCU said:
and I asked:
National collaboration on the backend and a focus on industry awareness seem makes a lot more sense than spending resources on a national brand.
@Brent: thanks for sharing those quotes.
@Doug – excellent, thoughful post!
Advertising campaigns for CUs are hard for a few reasons …
1. It exposes our differences, rather than unify the movement.
2. He who commits the most money tends to have the most say. (See #1)
3. Launching the campaign isn’t the end of the process – it’s the beginning of the really hard work – managing expectations and measuring success (both of which are quite difficult, in my view).
If CUs enter this space, it might be better to consider doing a massive Big Idea type concept (examples – working to develop a massive national scholarship program, or committing to raise $100 million in five years for cancer research).
It would need to be something that engages everyone, generates earned media, and brands CUs as caring financial service organizations (but the branding part would not be the point of the campaign).
Thanks for creating this space to chat about this issue.
There is one fundamental issue that needs to be addressed if a national credit union branding campaign were to succeed: We must figure out what that brand is and…(wait for it)...hold credit unions accountable for following it.
We have the first part of this down pat. We know our structure is different than that of banks. We know what that structure allows – better deposit returns for members, democratic governance, lower loan rates, a more intimate relationship with members, etc. We know that 98% of the credit unions out there are doing unbelievably great things on a daily basis.
We don’t, however, hold that other 2% accountable for being….well…like a bank. Pursuit of a national branding campaign can only succeed in my opinion if its promises are realized.
A national ad will claim, “all credit unions are like XXXXXX.” Can we back that up? If so, what is the XXXXX that we can all claim? The lowest common denominator (that despicable 2%), isn’t much to be proud of.
Until we can look each other in the eye and honestly claim that our fellow CUs are truly behaving in the noble way they were chartered, forget a national campaign. Instead, we need to focus on not allowing the bad apples spoil the bunch.
I’m opposed to a national CU brand, but i dont know that my main concern would be that a few bad apples would spoil the bunch. Think about all the commercial banks…thousands of branches scattered across the nation (sometimes the world) and i know for a fact that some of these branches offer great, prompt service, and others do not. Its that way with all nationwide franchises. How many different levels of service have you been offered when entering a McDonalds…I think the issue is more keeping the credit union an individual, local and personal institution than getting everybody to follow the same standards of service.
A solid brand doesn’t have such inconsistencies…it can’t by definition. If what comes to my mind when I hear “credit union” is fundamentally different than what comes to your mind…it’s not a very solid brand at all.
I’m with Brent: No need for a formal brand.
Even if there were, “great member service” is not the place to start because the exceptions would sully the rule.
Instead, all you have to do is build awareness with the power of the word “saving.” From Navy Fed all the way down, credit unions are a place to save. In a nation that doesn’t save (but knows that it should) who can’t feel fuzzy about that?
A big part of the mess on this debate is what exactly is meant by “branding campaign”. I still haven’t had a chance to dive into the details of this lengthy report, but many commenters elsewhere have talked about this as if it’s a national advertising campaign. That would truly be a travesty.
@Brent – You’ve said it excellently… perhaps the debate should be framed around a national awareness campaign. I wonder if that framing would change the tone and results of this particular discussion.
@Warrior – If 98% of CUs exhibited “good CU behavior” then you could go ahead and run the campaign, and the outlying 2% will be marginalized. But It’s not 98% good CUs vs. 2% bad CUs. What constitutes bank-like or CU-like behavior, is a very gray line with no sharp definitions.
@Doug – I’ll take your initial battlefield analogy one step further -- it’s like marching on to the battlefield, swords drawn…. two years after the battle is over. You are right -- today’s world is all about enabling individuals, a diversity of voices, opinions and business models—not about any sort of mass media, or single voice. I’m reminded of the Incubus song “Megalomanic”. This whole notion is an idea whose time vanished ten years ago.
Like Morriss mentioned up there I think it’s important to remember that Branding != Advertising. Nor is branding simply a logo system and some collateral. A brand, ideally, is a unified message, an embodiment of who a company is. It’s not something that is simply seen, or stamped onto something but rather something that is experienced.
Thomas Gad’s 4D Branding, even went so far to break down into four distinct dimensions which describe different facets of the brand message and experience.
(quoting now)
(no longer quoting)
If this is how a brand is defined, then I think we can have our cake and eat it too. The Credit Union movement as a whole can have a brand (one with a massive Spiritual Dimension) that’s something that describes the common bond, heritage, and purpose that all credit unions share. Something like this that can be put out there and makes sense. It’s not watered down, and doesn’t try to be too tactical and confining. It’s role is to simply play into the hands of the local folk, the CUs.
So to me, I think if the brand is defined well enough we can raise awareness, and start to communicate a small slice of the CU Experience while the CUs themselves do what they’re made to do oh so well: Focus, and do all of the things that Doug mentioned at the ground level (basically implement the experience of the brand).
(On the other hand if the plan is to do an advertising campaign and call it a “brand”, boo, hiss, that’s just crazy)
@Morriss In this day of negative-only press, it’s the 2% that will get the national attention. There’s nothing the public enjoys more than exposing hypocrisy.
My point is not that a national awareness campaign is a bad idea…it’s that we have to make some changes before it can become a good one. We can start by finding a way to get the bad apples to become good again.
Doug and others – excellent posts on this topic. Very insightful comments and I wouldn’t disagree with any of them. You’ve hit upon issues that would prove to be huge obstacles if this idea were further pursued.
I did want to address one comment you made – that you thought it was “a little baffling that a national credit union branding campaign is something discussed.” I have the privilege of serving as the current Chair of the Marketing and Business Development Council and we developed this white paper.
Why, you ask? Well, approximately 3 years ago there was a very lively debate about this topic on the Council listserv. It was a very interesting discussion and we decided to hold an open forum at the 2006 CMBDC conference in Orlando to address the issue even further. Again, very interesting debate and we decided at that time to develop some sort of paper to research the issue further.
As the paper was being developed over the last year it has been interesting to me how often this issue has come up – at conferences, at meetings, at local chapter meetings – with many different ideas and thoughts (some good and some not-so-good) being thrown out by lots of industry folks – CEOs, marketers, board members, vendors, etc. As membership growth (or lack thereof) has become the topic du jour, the concept of national branding/advertising has been thrown out by some as a possible remedy. As state leagues have ramped up cooperative advertising efforts, some have asked “why can’t we do this on a national level?”
This issue is definitely being discussed by many folks on many different levels and I’m glad we produced this paper to bring a little more depth to the debate. At the end of it all, I think everyone needs to realize (and try to understand) the deep ramifications of pursuing a national brand. It’s so much more than developing some clever ads, and hopefully this paper will get people thinking. And just maybe all that thinking will get people talking, and acting on, innovate ways to break out – be it on an individual credit union level, state level, regionally, or even nationally.
Morriss and others – you raise a great point about branding and advertising being two totally different things. This is addressed in the paper.
Make sure to check out the article we included at the end of the paper that was written by Rob Kimmett from the Massachusetts CU League. I think he makes some great points.
I want the “Got Milk” campaign for CU’s. It was a great advertising campaign that raised awareness for milk drinking across the nation. Individual milk companies could still market how they wanted to, but they had backup marketing to get the basic milk message out.
Think about it like a franchise. Subway has marketing all over the place that supports the individual stores. Yes, franchises have little control over the marketing message (which could be a good thing) but the basic premise is that there is a national, generic presence. Shari mentioned on twitter the other day that trying to get 25 VP’s of Marketing to agree on anything is nearly impossible. We need a national and generic CU message that still gives individual CU’s plenty of freedom, but also gives them the tools to succeed.
Thanks for the lively discussion, everyone.
Robbie, I think the “got milk?” style campaign for CU’s is exactly the thing to avoid. It robs CU’s of resources to focus locally by foisting a national campaign on them to activate and market around. I think in the long run, it would be more expensive and less effective for local credit unions.
Milk is milk across the nation. For every CU charter there’s a variance in products, services, field of membership, etc.
I’d rather see those dollars spent in training and providing help to specific, local chapters and CUs and allow each CU or chapter to determine its goals and needed return on investment.
It’s about communicating deep, not wide. Being specific, not generic.
The co-op model inherently creates different motivations and accountabilities that are beneficial for consumers and difficult for banks to achieve because of their short-term responsibilities to investors.
Credit unions too are accountable to investors, but they just so happen to be the same people using their products and services. A national branding campaign on what credit unions are about and why they are inherently different could really resonate with many consumers of all ages.
Who is not sick of corporate greed being motivated to make officers and investors rich regardless of the consequence to their consumers and what percentage of people even understand the business model differences between a bank’s and a credit union and how and why it makes a difference to them? Since the answers are just about everyone and hardly anyone, it makes sense to educate.
It’s then up to credit unions to differentiate their own brand and to demonstrate how they are effectively leveraging the coop business model for the benefit of their members.
For credit unions to be effective and remain viable in the long term, they absolutely must find common ground and leverage their aggregate power. It won’t be easy, but it surely is possible and over time an absolute necessity.
A national campaign for something like the “2 to 10 in 10” campaign from the CU Housing Roundtable…Yes. But not CUs in general. Just my opinion.
@CU Warrior You’re right about the media. If a national campaign were focused on credit unions’ better service, low rates, or local involvement people would seek out those few “bad apples” and spray them across the media. One of the benefits of being a bunch of scattered institutions is that a single institution rarely draws a large amount of negative press for the group as a whole. A single CU brand would let those few “bad apples” have a bigger “voice” for the whole cu brand in the media. I don’t know if making it an awareness campaign would dampen that effect or not…
Also, most adults are pretty set in their financial ways. Not many of them are going to make a switch. We need to focus on a younger group. That younger group doesn’t respond to traditional marketing, and even recoils from it at times. We need to be more creative than a run of the mill ad campaign to reach the audience we’re looking for.
Good post so much covered and helped me greatly. I work on the advertising side and fully agree that a national focus is not the best strategy for a serious ROI. The question arises then what are some of the better local market opportunities?
My firm has decided to place ourselves in the middle between the CU and web-based major media outlets (our clients). The goal is to get brands in context of content to the largest audience, in context with relevant content, and at the lowest cost.
Regarding the content, the CU gets to participate by providing items like current CD rates or personal finance editorial that become a widget on the media site. The CU then gets content for their site as well.
We have our first case study and are now targeting selected markets one by one. Those interested should contact me directly Stephen at FinancialContent dot com.