9-Point Brand Self-Exam

Posted by Jeffry Pilcher, guest blogger

Here are nine questions you should ask to test and see if branding is part of your credit union's DNA.

1. Can I articulate our brand’s essence in three words or less? Can our brand be distilled down to a short, distinct statement?
2. Have we captured the core tenets of our brand in one simple document and presented it to everyone in our organization?
3. Do we have a cross-departmental brand team? Is ”brand” on the agenda of our senior management meetings? Does senior management evaluate and discuss the health of the brand and branding initiatives regularly?
4. Does our staff know what our brand is and how to live it out?
5. Have we aligned HR functions like training, hiring and orientation with our brand? Are new employees screened according to the brand, and are they trained on brand standards and values?
6. Do we deliver a consistent brand experience across all touchpoints? Is our look-and-feel consistent? Have we maintained a consistent brand voice for many years?
7. Have we narrowly defined our target audience? Have we focused on a specific demographic, lifestyle, age, etc.?
8. Have we established a budget specifically for building our brand (e.g., research) – a budget separate from marketing?
9. Do we quantitatively monitor, measure, evaluate and assess the health of our brand? Such research things like name awareness, brand perceptions and competitive strengths/weaknesses?

If you answered “yes” to all nine questions, you are truly a branded organization.

6-8 “yes” answers is still pretty good. Your organization definitely “gets” branding, you just have a few more things to do.

3-5 “yes” answers means you’re on the branded path, but there may be some big discrepancies between your strategy and the experience you deliver.

0-2 “yes” answers suggests you have a lot of work to do on your brand, especially how it is managed internally.

Jeffry Pilcher is president of ICONiQ and the chief blogger for The Financial Brand blog.