The Story

It’s something I’ve heard several times over the past four or five years. And each time, it’s felt like fingernails on the chalkboard to me. A client has been presented with a strong concept–an actual idea communicated creatively with conceptual elements. You know, saying what you mean without saying it literally. Last time I checked, in bank and credit union marketing (as with all marketing and branding), conceptual is a good thing.

Here’s the response to these conceptual ideas I’ve heard: “It’s a little too cutesy.”

Cutesy? Cutesy is much different than conceptual, I’m here to tell you. Conceptual communicates ideas in powerful ways; often clever ways. Cutesy tries to make people laugh, smile, or say “that’s cute.” Cutesy is “punny”–funny in a pun-like way.

These people react cautiously to ideas they see as cutesy, because they don’t see their bank brands as cute. And they shouldn’t, in most cases. But what they do need, though, is the confidence to communicate a big idea in a powerful and memorable way. And that’s called a concept.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Bank Branding, Credit Union Branding, Rants, Bank Marketing, Branding, Credit Union Marketing. 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.