The Story

When, at the recent ABA Bank Marketing Conference, a participant in the roundtable discussion on bank branding said that she was concerned with “developing a message to appeal more broadly,” it occurred to me what a dangerous desire this really is. As we at CBC see it, developing a broadly appealing message is NOT what a bank marketing person wants to do. Instead, what they really want to do is do a better job of developing a relevant message for the specific group they want to attract.

In other words, they need to focus on being themselves better. Telling–and proving–their own story with more clarity, focus and differentiation.

You see, the broader you make your message, the more generic it has to become. That’s the nature of “broad”–it has to be so diluted so that it’s acceptable to a wide range of people. This is extremely indicative of the mostly industry-wide syndrome of trying to be everything to everyone. I haven’t yet met a banker who’s willing to admit that, but this focus on broadening the message is a clear symptom.

Broadening the message is the shotgun approach. Sure, you may hit lots of people, but it’s erratic and you’re not going to hit them very hard. The more brand-centric approach is to use the “rifle”–to actually focus your message, and make a bigger impression on a smaller number of people.

I think Brady at Market Insights agrees. But see for yourself.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 11:45 am and is filed under Bank Branding, Bank Marketing, Branding, Bank marketing plan. 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.