The Story

This morning I’m pondering the topic of rebellion…specifically, as usual, related to branding and marketing for banks and credit unions. I’ve always considered myself and CBC to NOT be about rebellion. Yet, we’re still very rebellious. We’re not contrarian, yet we have a lot of contrarian ideology and do a lot of contrarian work. What gives?

It’s because we believe in what I call “appropriate rebellion”–not rebellion for the sake of rebellion, but rather rebellion when it makes sense. When it matters. It’s not about trying to rebel. Instead, it’s about letting yourself rebel when you need to do what’s right for your own brand.

I hate the cliché “think outside the box” for lots of reasons, but one of those reasons is that I believe thinking outside the box is often forced rebellion. It’s rebelling because you think you are supposed to rebel. That’s the opposite of appropriate rebellion.

I believe not only CBC but banks and credit unions themselves will be most effective if they stop worrying about thinking outside the box. Instead, they should bring an attitude of “what box?” When you’ve got a “what box?” kind of attitude, you’re free to develop, simply, the BEST ideas. And if some of those ideas fall within the box, and others outside, then so be it. You don’t need to go out of your way to break the rules–just simply don’t ever acknowledge their existence.

That’s appropriate rebellion.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 10:06 am and is filed under Bank Branding, Credit Union Branding, Kick Ass Ideas & Musings, Bank Marketing, 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.