Exclusivity – Equity – Confusion…what’s in your name?

As the competition for member and consumer attention continues to increase from both high-tech and high-touch financial organizations, the absolute need for us to focus, align our vision across the organization and, most of all, be relevant and disruptive, has never been more important.

How are we doing as disruptors in the minds of our members and consumers? If a Brand Keys Survey of 75 brands, including banks, is any indication, then we have some work to do. It begs the question – what have soap manufacturers figured out that we haven’t?

Soap differentiation = 100%*

Financial Institutions & Motor Oil differentiation = 0%*

Answering the big questions.

Questions like these can get the best of any organization trying to decide whether or not to change their name, and if they have the expertise to do it themselves versus hiring the “right” partner to help them through one of the most monumental shifts in their organization they will ever undertake.

• What is the internal and external perception of our credit union among members and in the communities we serve?
• Are there exclusivity and confusion factors driving our decrease in growth, capital and overall profitability?
• Do we continue to hang our hat on a legacy reputation or on the non-participatory military, educational or government founders of our credit union?
• And, how do we know our members won’t be so upset with the name change that they will all leave for another credit union or bank?

These questions are only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Does this name bind us geographically? What does this acronym mean to someone looking for a place to do his or her banking? How does the name resonate with potential merger partners or our expansion plans? The list goes on.

All great questions, and all questions you must have the answers to as you measure name equity versus exclusivity and define the vision of what those before you have worked to hard to build as the credit union you now enjoy.

“The impact of weak naming processes, lack of gaining alignment among management and Board, lost time, costly trademarking blunders, and subsequent expenses from a failed naming process is devastating on organizations, internal cultures and member and stakeholder trust. It is not a project any organization will ever want to be forced to repeat.”– Mark Weber, CEO, Weber Marketing Group

Finding the right partner.

Many a credit union has tried to go it alone. While others, well, have found that the road to knowledge on combining the right process with the right brain power to answer the tough question as well as develop a name that resonates can be fraught with mine fields of best intentions gone awry.

Here to help are the 7 Keys To Selecting the Right Naming & Branding Partner, we have gained in retrospect over 28 years helping over 70 organizations battle the questions and conversations they are having right now.

*The original study is available offline from Brand Keys.