Financial & Economic Blog

FORECLOSURES GONE BAD
The Obama administration, through the U.S. Treasury Department will begin taking actions against mortgage servicers who are not doing enough ways to ease troubled homeowners, as a part of the President’s promise of $75 Billion pledge to curb foreclosures.
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A recent post from Cashcow features two ad campaigns promising to make banking simpler.  It’s a worthy goal, but I tend to agree with Jeff Pilcher’s comment that—at least historically—such campaigns reflect bank-think rather than how customers think.

What stuck with me about the post, though, was the tagline for an Australian bank’s campaign:  “We live in your world.”

In the U.S. it’s become increasingly apparent that banks don’t live in our world.  They live in a world where any thought of truly serving their customers begins and ends in a 30-second spot.   A world where shareholders are kings and everyone else is a goldmine.  Where any deception is OK as long as it’s profitable.

Is this an unfair assessment?  It doesn’t matter because, if you’re a bank of any size, This is your brand in the world where your customers live.

It doesn’t matter what you think your brand is or what you want it to be.  You’re stuck with the brand your customers give you.  This is the crux of Outside-In Banking.:

• You don’t own your brand.  They do.
• You don’t create your brand.  They do.
• You don’t control your brand.  They do.

So, if you want your brand to change, you have to change.  And that doesn’t mean changing your tagline.  It means changing your world.

How’s that for making banking simple?