The Story

…is hereby banned from client mouths at Creative Brand Communications. Here’s why.

I can appreciate that “I’ll know it when I see it” seems like common sense. We’ve all said it before, I’m sure. And sometimes it’s valid…like when you’re buying pants.

Unfortunately, though, credit union branding and strategic marketing for banks is not about common sense. It’s about strategy, focus and concept. “I’ll know it when I see it” means that you have no clear idea of what you’re trying to accomplish with your work–no criteria for your decisions. Therefore you can’t effectively evaluate the options presented to you, since you have no criteria to evaluate them against.
Instead, here’s what happens: you end up evaluating your options by simply looking for something that happens to strike a chord and look nice to you. Doing this reduces your evaluation of ideas from strategic to aesthetic. Instead of looking for the right strategic solution, you end up looking for what’s pretty.

So the next time you begin to say “I’ll know it when I see it,” stop yourself. Step back and reconfirm clearly what it is you’re trying to accomplish. Whether you’re working on bank advertising, corporate branding or a web site design, know that your criteria are X, Y and Z; that way, you can say “I’ll know it when we’ve got X, Y and Z.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Bank Branding, Credit Union Branding, Rants, Bank Marketing, Branding, Credit Union Marketing, Corporate 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.