The Story

Check this out, I just made up a new phrase: “The Reinvention Chasm.”

“What in tarnation does that mean?” you might wonder. Thanks for asking.

The Reinvention Chasm describes the growing distance between brands that are able to continually evolve and redefine themselves, and brands who think reinvention is an “initiative” that should happen once a decade or so…and can barely manage to even do that.

A while back I realized that the strong brands I monitor, like Umpqua Bank, consider themselves their biggest competitors. It’s not about staying a step ahead of any other bank…their self-imposed challenge is to continually outdo themselves. This leads to continual evolution and perpetual reinvention of themselves. And eventually, because of the Reinvention Chasm, puts them multiple steps ahead of the competition.

That’s because the competition is still hung up on trying to execute their first reinvention, and can barely even make that happen, let alone an ongoing cycle of reinvention. If you see reinvention as a project rather than an ongoing activity, it’s always going to seem like a daunting undertaking…and you’re going to avoid it.

So…this results in an exponentially growing distance between the two categories of brands. Thus, “the Reinvention Chasm.”

Please comment and argue with me.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 7:29 am and is filed under Bank Branding, Credit Union Branding, Bank Marketing, Branding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.