First American Bank in Athens, Georgia is truly an amazing company. The bank is over seventy-five years old, yet constantly looks for ways to adapt to meet a changing market. First American hired Snowden Tatarski to rebuild the bank's marketing strategy and image to appropriately address new consumers.
With a shift in the strategy and a solid campaign, the bank took aim at competitors who had eroded the bank's market share. Snowden Tatarski created one position which evolved into a second with multiple executions under each. The multi-year, multi-company effort is considered by many associated with the bank to be the single most important step in regaining relevance with consumers taken in several decades.
The campaign was so successful that the bank was awarded the Georgia Community Banking Association "Best of the Best" for 2004 and 2006. Campaigns for First American have also received gold Addy® Awards from the American Advertising Federation.
It was not so long ago that the president of a packaged goods company asked me why I thought our firm could uniquely position a brand of mayonnaise. I told him mayonnaise is a walk in the park when you have had to competitively position financial services. After all, there are not five thousand different mayonnaise brands out there saying “trust us.”
Banking and financial services are unique in many aspects of marketing. I have found the crux of bank marketing to be in two places: first, in the differentiation through the entire scope of marketing, and second, in the execution of communication in a way that consumers find interesting and believable.
The regulatory nature of bank marketing has often been mistaken for a restriction of marketing prowess. The typically conservative nature of financial services has added further restraint in the creativity and resulting potency of promotional efforts. As the visible results and returns of bank marketing efforts continue to erode, many institutions have made the marketing department a tertiary concern, leaving it to make flyers and organize the Christmas party.
My experience in bank marketing has yielded the recognition of several positions which banks seemed drawn to take. These positions are often taken in spite of competitors who have taken the same position. The advertising war becomes one of quantity instead of strategy. The following are common positions and their characteristics, and the challenges we find accompany them.
1. Community involvement
It is true that community involvement may allow brand transference from good will to propensity to buy, but the nature of the execution should be reviewed.
Our firm surveyed a group of consumers concerning community involvement. The result was stark. Consumers told us they appreciated the support of the bank, but preferred enhanced convenience and profit over support. Simply put, they said, “Give us some of our money to back, and we’ll support the charity of our choice.”
The surveyed consumers felt if a bank had money to support every cause in town, then perhaps the bank was charging too much.
2. Talking heads
The front lines of banks are its bankers, and banks are therefore driven to build up the individual persona of a particular banker. The challenge then facing the bank is whether or not the banker is exuding the institution’s brand concept or if it even has a brand concept at all.
Our firm has worked in building the persona and recognition of individual bankers, but only within a clearly defined strategy. As attrition in the industry is prevalent, our advertising allowed the banker and the bank to be promoted along a defined strategy so that if the banker left, the strategy and brand equity achieved with consumers remained.
3. Trust, listening and personal service
The trust, listening and personal service trifecta accounts for most bank marketing. Banks are often guilty of being so obtuse in offering a brand promise that consumers have begun to ignore them.
When we surveyed consumers, they felt disconnected from most banks’ brand promises. Consumers said they did not believe one institution’s service to be uniformly better than another and indicated they would rather choose a particular institution for a defined attribute such as substantiated increases in convenience or profitability.
Snowden Tatarski has long advocated for our clients to embrace a central brand ethos and brand position. For banks, this means defining a strategy such as cost, convenience, breadth or focus of service, expertise, etc. Our clients are then urged to integrate the brand ethos into product development, brand identity, advertising and promotion and direct sales.
We advised one of our banking clients to take a position based on breadth of service. The client’s bank was relatively old, had many services newer banks eschew and faced serious competition from heavily armed competitors. We advised the bank to develop a product suite which would evolve and apply to consumers throughout a lifetime. The pitch, “Life-long Banking,” positioned the bank as a long term partner and facilitated multiple opportunities to cross-sell and up-sell an existing base of consumers who are already brand loyal to the bank’s relationship basing. The resulting strategy was both defensive and offensive and gave the bank a solid marketing position in which to base much of operations and planning.
As the field of financial services shifts, banks would be wise to build solid and competitive marketing positions in which to root the customer experience. Banks which evaluate core competencies and build brand strategies within those competencies will find real value in marketing as competitors stagnate on ineffective practices. While the landscape will inevitably shift, banks can stay on solid ground with a solid brand concept.