A personal reflection of a recent branding project.
Brand has always been an area of marketing that has fascinated me. I felt I had a good grasp of what brand is and how it fits in to a company’s overall marketing strategy. However, the process of working on a large rebranding project this year for FH Manning Financial Services has made me realise, even more than previously, that a brand is a reflection of a company’s values and these need to be felt at every customer touchpoint. This is especially important within the financial services sector where there is currently a huge lack of trust. Steve Jobs said “ a brand has to stand for something” and I believe this is where many of the larger businesses within the financial services sector have fallen very short.
Paul Hutchens from the Chartered Institute of Marketing said one of the main reasons a company needs values is because they can represent an ‘ ethical differentiator’ and when a company shows this through their behaviour in the marketplace it can have a positive affect on their bottom line. This has been substantiated by recent research. Below is a comment within an article produced by Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/forrester/2018/05/23/millennials-call-for-values-driven-companies-but-theyre-not-the-only-ones-interested/#67894b95464f). “ Millennials have the highest expectations for brands to take a stand on values. Our Consumer Technographics® data shows that nearly seven in 10 US Millennials actively consider company values when making a purchase – compared with 52% of all US online adults. Older Millennials (ages 27 to 35) are particularly conscious of company values across product categories.” It’s all very well trying to create a brand whose values are in line with what millennials want but in the process of re-branding an organisation it’s important not to create a set of values that are un-realistic and therefore will not become part of the culture of the organisation. This will only lead to is distrust and a lack of clarity.
There is very little more powerful than a video to help get across a company’s values so we worked with Bracket Energy to create a video for FH Manning Financial Services that we put on the new website we designed and produced for them. If you’d like to take a look, the link is: FH Manning Financial services Video