Living your brand or just living with it?

Ask 10 people to tell you what “branding” means, and you’ll hear 10 different answers. To some it means creating a new logo, a new “look.” Others focus on the tagline. The new Web-site. A shift to social media. Internal branding to retain key employees until economic recovery arrives.

Others point to the brand strategy that precedes execution. After all, the strategic foundation supports everything that follows.

The component no one mentions is the least glamorous and hardest to achieve, yet just as critical – the arduous and unrelenting challenge of “living your brand” long after the thrill of launching the program has subsided.

In most companies, the brand is really just a collection of rules (how to use the logo without violating the graphic standards) and tactical guidelines (use a sophisticated, upscale voice to appeal to our target audience). This is what I call “living with your brand.”

In more enlightened companies, the brand is much more than just a rulebook. It reminds you that the world is full of customers to be served, not just buyers to be sold. It inspires you to follow your brand strategy into territory that may be uncharted, with the goal of serving your customers better and deserving their loyalty.

Uncharted territory

We have many reckless companies and negligent federal overseers to blame for our present financial crisis, but if you think “banks” and “bankers” in general belong at the top of the list, take a closer look.

The world of banking and finance includes many varieties of banks and “non-banks”: investment banks, commercial banks, community banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, mortgage brokers and more. Some, virtually unregulated, sold and resold subprime loans, derivatives and other “innovative” financial creations. They took on terrific risk, gambling with your financial well-being and mine in the process.

Meanwhile, others – including locally owned community banks like Home State Bank and others here in Northern Colorado – avoided subprime loans and risky out-of-state investments, and remained true to their conservative management principles.

Then, the financial crisis struck. Equity markets fell, credit froze and the whole economic engine threatened to seize up. People everywhere were terrified of losing their homes, their savings and any hope of retirement.

Business owners throughout Northern Colorado are still struggling. Many are relying on personal credit cards, home-equity lines of credit and withdrawals from their retirement savings to pay their business expenses.

Listen to your brand

How have banks across the nation responded to all this heartache? As of last December, after months of economic chaos and panic, the response from banks large and small on their Web sites was virtually unanimous: They said nothing. Incredibly, little has changed since then, either.

No words of explanation from the banking and financial “experts” in their communities. No words of reassurance to frightened customers – except to say their banks were strong and their customers’ deposits were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The Home State management team recognized this appalling lack of response and asked this question, “What does our brand tell us to do?”

For me, as a longtime adviser to Home State Bank, this response was thrilling because it came from the heart.  I know that Home State’s character as a true community bank is the cornerstone of its brand. Its focus is on its local ownership and deep commitment to the community. Every teller, loan officer, board member and executive understands the brand and the values it stands for.

The financial crisis stirred a genuine desire among the bank’s staff to aim higher than simply weathering a tough economy. Their answer was to build a new Community Banking Help Center on Home State’s Web site, with the goal of providing insight and advice for everyone in the community.

By the people, for the people

The first step was to convene a large workshop of bank staffers from every branch and identify the questions customers were asking. Then the group tapped the bank’s collective “knowledge base” and many other resources to develop answers with real substance.

The Community Banking Help Center at HomeStateBank.com provides information on many topics related to the recession as well as everyday banking and financial matters. In plain language it explains more than 150 banking and financial terms that confuse most customers. (Can you define LIBOR, TARP, TALF, BIS and derivatives?)

It offers insights for personal and business financial management as well as mortgage, investing and retirement. And it provides one of the clearest explanations you’ll find anywhere of the rules of FDIC insurance coverage. (Can you explain how to store more than $2 million in FDIC-insured deposits in a single bank?)

Most important, it reflects the result of one company’s commitment to draw inspiration and courage from its brand, and take action that was truly meaningful – and purely voluntary. In a conservative industry characterized by cookie-cutter Web sites and me-too “products,” Home State could have remained as quiet as other banks across the country.

Instead, the bank stepped up and lived its brand.

Don Condit is president of Condit Marketing Communications Inc. in Fort Collins. To join the discussion, send questions or comments to dcondit@conditmarketing.com.

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