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Leslie de Chernatony and Susan Cottam explore the complex factors that make a successful internal branding programme in the financial sector
Financial services providers have traditionally placed little importance on their brands, something that is reflected in the annual Interbrand brand ranking poll. In 2004, just 28% of the top 100 global brands were services, and merely nine per cent were financial services brands.
Until recently, few had moved beyond the visual, 'brand as logo' stage. But thanks to factors such as deregulation, increasing globalisation, the homogeneous nature of the offering and greater competition, many are now realising that the brand can be a key, if not the only, differentiator.
The following research was carried out on six leading high- street banks in the UK consumer market: two with successful brands (referred to as S1 and S2) and four with less successful brands (henceforth referred to as L1, L2, L3 and L4). Sixty-eight employees - ranging from chief executives to marketing directors to customer service staff - were interviewed and asked to describe their corporate brand.
The research aimed to determine the internal factors driving successful financial services brands. Four of these are explored here:
1. The brand as a holistic experience
For successful services brands, the brand is interpreted as everything experienced by the customer. The synergy between each element of the experience enables the brand to be more than the sum of its parts. This reflects a 'sophisticated' mode of branding where the brand is not simply a logo or advertising campaign.
This is highly appropriate in a services context. Whereas the focus of FMCG branding is traditionally advertising, packaging and point of sale, services branding uses these in addition to intangibles such as the behaviour of employees during the service encounter. Comments from respondents with successful brands that illustrate this include:
"... a brand is the overall promise that we project into the...