There’s a seductive myth floating around that designing a great logo, picking typefaces and colors, and creating a clever tagline is branding.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s not true. Making your bank look good is a part of branding. But in the larger and more useful sense, branding is about creating a memorable, positive experience for every customer, every time they interact with you. That’s just too big a responsibility to heap upon any logo, no matter how cool it is.

What is a brand?

The original brand was something ranchers burned onto the hindquarters of their cattle. The mark made it easy to track down lost or stolen animals, but it also stood for the quality of the livestock and the integrity of the rancher. (This is the important one for us.)

Like it or not, most customers view bank services as a commodity. To many, a bank is a bank is a bank (although we all know that’s not true). A solid brand for your bank will only emerge when the experience you create for your customers is markedly different from what they have come to expect.

Often, a brand evolves over time without much clear direction, until an identity emerges. Very often in banking, what emerges, notwithstanding logos, slogans and grandiose rhetoric, is “just another bank.”

What to do?

Decide what your bank stands for

In Built to Last, James Collins and Jerry Porras observe, “…an enduring great company decides for itself what values it holds to be core, largely independent of the current environment, competitive requirements, or management fads.”

Core values are principles that are integral to your organization’s existence. They are the essence of the business and the cornerstone on which the brand is built. As you determine the brand’s core values — the shorter the list, the greater its power — you create a rallying point for the organization.

Caution: it is too easy to slip into mindless hot air. “To provide the best in financial services with the utmost courtesy” may make the Board of Directors and their spouses feel good about themselves. But name one bank that couldn’t make that claim. Do better.

Once you nail down your core values, test how “core” your values really are. Advertising legend Bill Bernbach said, “More and more I have come to the conclusion that a principle isn’t a principle until it costs you money.” So ask what each potential core value is worth and what you’re willing to give up to keep it.

It doesn’t help much to choose core values if you can’t explain them and how they are essential to your organization. Write a paragraph or two explaining why each value describes the bank and why it matters. Be specific and passionate, because these will define of the bank’s identity.

Now, about that logo…

Once you know who and what you are and what you stand for, all communications should grow out of and support those values.

With that in place, if you want to talk about your logo and colors (and, if you must, your slogan), we can. And we can do so in terms of how they support a substantive brand promise. It’s coming up in my next post.