Strategic rebranding for growth & RoI

Strategic rebranding can drive big results across the board for financial institutions, with performance increases in acquisition and market share, with deepening relationships and service adoption, and with increased employee engagement. Different financial organisations achieved numbers like these through well-orchestrated strategic rebranding initiatives. Strategic rebranding can achieve the net member growth, growth in new customer acquisition, growth in young target acquisition (200-44 years old), loan growth, increase in mobile banking users, NPS, decrease in staff turnover, increase in employee volunteerism, and employee satisfaction score up to the mark.

A well-managed rebranding program inspires individuals; it ignites cultures towards innovation; and helps align teams to deliver a unique, consistent and inspired brand promise. It must be backed by clear actions, values, shared language and measurable behaviors that create emotional connections and rich experiences that employees and your own members are starved for today to improve their financial health. Successful brand transformation that inspires people forward isn’t easy. It comes from an intentional, united, and clearly managed process and solid brand research to dig deep to focus on cultural employee engagement, along with member experience processes and channel enhancement in need of continuous improvement. Done well, a renewed brand comes to life in rich, emotional storytelling, tone of voice and building brand connections that inspire people towards a shared purpose. Amidst last year’s disruptive, Covid-fueled impacts (leaving many employees working from home overnight), teams across the country are nose-down focused on mission-critical departmental operational initiatives: from badly needed DP conversions to data analytics projects or important cross selling initiatives.

And the rise of siloes is inevitable. Teams not well aligned with shared focus can’t move in sync towards real purpose or vital advancements to drive growth. But re-engaged behind a unifying shared brand promise; inspired by a clear and compelling purpose and principles that unite teams around one common vision of helping members in tough times. Increased staff satisfaction, an intended byproduct of reshaping internal cultural brand focus leads to higher engagement scores and retention of talent that directly hits your bottom line. This search for culture and even relevant workplace meaning has never been more important. Study reveals that 84% of Millennials say “making a difference in the world is more important than personal recognition.” Closing the gap from “engaged employees” to brand leading, passionate, values-driven staff can lead to “brand evangelists.” Effective brand alignment pays off in higher employee retention; NPS scores; referrals and organic growth. Highly engaged employees drive richer, more focused member brand experiences. They lead to increased member engagement, deeper profitable relationship building and ultimately market share growth. 

The rebranding process is fraught with emotion. There are different stakeholders, groups coming at the decision with different perspectives. A financial institution has the board, the management, employees & then the members. It’s really challenging to understand each stakeholder group and what they are thinking about with a decision that big and that emotional. They level all of the emotion and disharmony that might come as you wade through that equation and bring folks to alignment, diffuse the emotion, look at the facts, make a decision, and move forward as a more united front.

So how do you know brand is on target and effective, or overdue for an external assessment, brand refresh or positioning strategy update. Five questions to ask how healthy organizational brand program is today- Are you attracting and growing younger millennial and GenZ members and borrowers, who are drawn to your brand and fully engaged, Do all managers and employees understand what brand is today and how to live it out, Do they express a consistent differentiated brand language and position, Is brand awareness in the market high, confusing, or undifferentiated from key competitors, Do have a well-defined and compelling value proposition that multi-generational consumers are responding to, or do you default to low rates and product features, Are digital and social strategies aligned behind clear data-driven segments. A well-branded member experience, voice and metrics. Brand leaders challenge the status quo of their brand position constantly, instead of settling for thinking their static brand is doing fine. Delivering “friendly, caring” service, mobile banking and low rates is not a competitive differentiator, it is “table stakes” everyone must provide. Uniting brand and team towards a more compelling and inspiring brand vision and market distinction can transform culture and performance that follows. Amidst explosive technology shifts and the rise of new financial competitors, it’s time to hink carefully about assessing the state of brand perceptions and strategy both internally and externally.

Managing and evolving distinctive user experiences, improving cultural brand focus and alignment can make the difference between who stays the course and whose brand thrives in this new digital world. It is the time to assess the state of brand. Many financial institutions’ future success will be dependent upon ensuring that their brand is poised to adapt and lead ahead. This requires both strategy and some measured risk taking to achieve brand distinction, tackling problems with a bias towards creativity and investing in new methods and ways to get to know customers better. Now is a challenging time for some financial institutions to consider investing in their brand while firefighting the continued challenges of 2024. Yet there are often a range of leading indicators from slowed growth, declining awareness and sub-par NPS score that suggest it’s time to see how your brand equity is performing in the market and if it is strategically guiding and helping grow banks and financial institution.

If we are wondering whether now is really the right time for organisations to reimagine and re-engineer brand, history suggests disruptions like recessions or economic downturn may be the perfect time to invest in assessing brand and name equity in the market and engaging culture in re-articulating brand story and vision. Disruption and uncertainty can also become a positive catalyst for challenging the status quo and driving innovation and creative thinking. Amidst this crisis faced in 2023, now may be the perfect time to engage staff, board and leaders in a daring discovery of your brand vision and purpose for the next wave of changes and readying your organisation to thrive ahead.

The writer is Company Secretary of The City Bank Limited