In this episode
In this episode, Rory Holland, CSTMR CEO, and Dan Ocock, CSTMR Chief of Brand, discuss the foundational elements of branding, particularly in the financial and fintech sectors. They emphasize the importance of understanding what a brand truly is, the necessity of knowing your audience, and the power of differentiation in a crowded market. Through examples and insights, they explore how brands can evolve and adapt to maintain relevance and connection with their audience.
Key takeaways
- The proliferation of brands has diluted the understanding of what a brand is.
- A brand is fundamentally about reputation and perception, not just a logo.
- Differentiation is key in a competitive market, especially in fintech.
- Brands can lose their way and need to revisit their foundations periodically.
- A strong brand foundation can lead to sustained growth and success.
Transcript
Rory Holland (00:01).
Hey, I’m Rory, Founder and CEO at CSTMR.
Dan Ocock (00:10)
And I’m Dan, I’m the brand strategist and brand designer here at CSTMR.
Rory Holland (00:15)
So here we are, episode one, bedrock of success. That’s right. Bedrock of success, laying the brand foundations.
Dan Ocock (00:19)
We are. We’re recording video as well, can you believe it? Good place to start.
Rory Holland (00:35)
It is a good place to start. I like the name Dan. Foundation, I think particularly as we see with companies and it’s as brands have proliferated and I tried to look up how many brands existed in the world 30 years ago. And the now growing ChatGPT couldn’t tell me.
Dan Ocock (00:40)
Okay, well it just didn’t have a figure at all.
Rory Holland (01:04)
It said there’s too many variables for it to be able to do it because I looked on the internet and I looked around and I couldn’t find what felt like a good number. I even asked a couple of folks to guess and no one could really venture a guess beyond the Fortune 500, Fortune 1000. Because you remember 30 years ago, the internet wasn’t around. It was much different. With the proliferation of globalization. The internet, the ease with which people could stand up, “brand,” has changed the dynamic so much.
And I think in ways, as we talk about a foundation, it is diluted what people’s understanding of a brand because they pop up so frequently. And even, you know, we’re making up names now to try to secure domains or whatever it may be.
So I guess the question is what is a brand? And I want to just contextualize that a little bit for our experience over the last 30 years doing this. I’ve seen a change and even C-level executives and founders of companies understanding of what a brand is. So what is a foundation when you don’t understand what a brand really is?
Dan Ocock (02:31)
Yeah, I think it’s a good, obviously we’ve started with this as episode one and I like how you’re questioning that, just that notion of what a brand is. And I think to build out from what you’ve just described and how people are beginning to, I think understand the value of brand has changed a lot in the last, certainly in the last 10 years.
It’s become, you know, a part of the business that really will set you out from the crowd. And I think it has to do with the amount of noise that’s out there, being able to cut through it. If we have to do that actual written words of what a brand is, then I probably, or the way I like to explain it in terms of, you know, what it means, it’s for me, it’s that reputation of a business or a person, if it’s personal brand, but your brand will precede a phone call.
Somebody will have built up a picture, an idea, whether it’s a compliment or even something negative about how that, you know, that business has been perceived by somebody else. So it’s word of mouth, it’s reputation. It’s something that it’s often not what most people would presume to be your logo. So let’s get, I mean, that’s definitely the first fact that I want to make here, that your brand is not your logo. That’s a small part of it.
So I’ve gone a bit around the houses there, but I think that that notion of a brand being that reputation is something that I would say that it’s the easiest way to grasp that concept.
Rory Holland (04:35)
Yeah, my, my mother used to tell me first impressions matter. So it’s hard to change that first impression. And when I think of the word reputation, it all begins with the first experience. And so I think often with, again, with the proliferation of the internet and then design available in all kinds of different, I’m not going to name any of the companies, but you could pay $5 for things and get what is called a design, but there’s no foundational strategy behind it.
So it’s a one dimensional, I would say a one dimensional flat identity that has no texture, no context, no foundation. And I think what happens even in our business and when financial or FinTech clients are coming to us, whether they’re early stage, have raised a few million dollars and built a product, or their growth companies and we’re experiencing this today, Dan, like we’re doing a couple of branding gigs for very, I would say established brands that have gotten away from, moved away from who they were and so their brands have in essence, from a visual perspective, the experience that’s on the website.
The way they write about themselves, the way they communicate has gotten stale and it’s off target, so it feels disingenuous. So, yeah. What do you think about that?
Dan Ocock (06:04)
Yeah. I think that’s an interesting point because it’s certainly, I don’t know if it is an age thing with businesses, not people. I think that when a business has been around for, you know, anywhere from the five-year mark is what I find that they kind of rest on their laurels is probably the best way to describe it. Or what they start to do is, like you just said, they lose sight or track of their original vision or mission.
And there’s two words that both are integral to that brand strategy, the brand foundations, as we’re calling them, calling it in this episode, that you must explore in order to have that solid grounding to build out from.
Rory Holland (06:42)
Yeah. And part of this, the foundation we’re going to talk about in a term that comes to mind for me is brands. Brands aren’t one dimensional. They’re three dimensional living things. And so you have to almost move around it to see it from all the different angles, because that’s what your audience is doing there. They’re experiencing your brand from a variety of different angles that you are likely not privy to. So as a result, you may be looking at it the wrong way.
Dan Ocock (07:44)
Yeah, and I think that’s a good point because your notion of having a multi-dimensional is basically the touch points I think you’re referring to for any business and those brand touch points will differ depending on the sector or what service that business provides. So in the example of a financial brand, the brand’s first touch point could be a phone call.
It might be that it’s an online service, but there’s a helpline or an inquiry line. And so, yes, they’ll engage with your website. That’ll probably be the first point, but then that second point might actually be an interaction with a chat bot or an actual person. I don’t know, but they’re all dimensions and facets to that brand.
Rory Holland (08:36)
Indeed. And so let’s back this up a little bit. So with that context, brands are three-dimensional. They’re organic. They’re living things. They do evolve. So companies that are more established that you may be listening, you have a five-year-old or 10-year-old or 20-year-old business, they do evolve and your brand needs to move with you.
And so if you’re at that point, this is a good conversation for you to be having. If you’re an earlier stage company, this is also good because you may be looking at your brand from a one dimensional perspective or a product only or features only or technical only. Your audience, those are important elements indeed, but your audience is experiencing your brand, your product, your services in multiple ways. So let’s keep that three dimensional lens on and then let’s talk about the very first step.
So, before you can develop a brand proper market research is required to understand where you fit in the market amongst the competitive set and the choices that your market has. And even if you’re blazing a new trail, companies that are doing that and leaders of companies that are doing that are listening, you are still competing for eyeballs and for customers that are choosing something else. So understanding where you fit in the market in the target market that you’re going after.
And I want to dig in with you on those couple of things, Dan, because I think that’s a fundamental misstep that businesses miss in trying to speedily move through a one-dimensional branding process. And I want to, again, go back to this is a three-dimensional moving organic living thing.
Dan Ocock (10:34)
Yeah, and that was a question down here that we jotted to make sure that we covered it, which was the importance of understanding your audience in financial marketing, which is why we brought this up. It is important. The reason from a visual perspective or even a visual video or listening to that particular brand, if you don’t know who you’re communicating then how do you know how to communicate to them, right?
So the hardest part when it comes to dealing with any brand work is dealing with the clients that say, well, everyone’s my client. So yeah. And then I think that’s probably at the point where you realize they definitely do have a brand problem because they just…
Rory Holland (11:08)
Mm-hmm. We’ve heard that a few times, right?
Dan Ocock (11:33)
They’re just trying to sell to everybody. Until you dig as deep as you can into that audience, that captive audience that you want to have coming in the door, going online, whatever it is, until you know what makes them tick, who they are, how they feel, you know, there is no way from, you know, I’m talking as a designer here, how can I design something to relate to somebody?
When it’s just anybody, you know?
Rory Holland (12:06)
Hmm. Mm-hmm. Indeed. Well, think of again, thinking about your brand and the experience, think of the people in your life that take the time to get to know you, that you have conversations, genuine, authentic conversations with. I mirror those two. When we think about brand strategy and building brands for our financial and FinTech clients, that you’re really building a relationship with your audience. And what’s one of the best ways to build a relationship with your audience is let them know that you care about them and that you know them, and what’s one way to get to know somebody? Research, look at their background, look at their history, look at their interests, look at their challenges, what are they concerned about? What keeps them up at night?
Dan Ocock (12:54)
And this is important, Rory, because I think it leads really nicely into the next point that we wanted to bring up about differentiating yourself and from a brand perspective. And so once you know that audience and who you’re communicating to, that’s the gold dust. That’s the stuff that you can tap into as a marketer, as a brander and say, right. You can sing from the rooftops about this. And that’s the differentiating part. Do you agree?
Rory Holland (13:25)
Hmm.
Oh, I wholeheartedly. So just, I want to back up for the audience. So first we talked about the importance of understanding your audience in financial, in fintech marketing, critical. You might have the sense that you want to sell to everyone. And that’s a wonderful thing if we can help the whole world with your services, but defining your target audience is number one. Number two, the power of differentiation in the financial sector. So it’s muddy. I just want to set this up a little bit, Dan.
So it’s so competitive and it’s so muddy out there and it’s noisy. So whether you’re a business that’s looking to buy a software, we think about the term fintech in banks. Think about what banks are trying to go through just to one small, small midsize community banks, regional banks are just trying to survive.
So that audience has a different need and desire and pain point they’re trying to solve versus a family that’s trying to pay the bills and needs to find a better way to do it and say, you know, looking at digital banking with lower fees or more access to lower interest costs types, those types of things.
So, understand your audience and then the differentiator. So how do you describe some of the steps a brand can take and laying that foundation to differentiate in the market?
Dan Ocock (14:58)
The steps that we put in place, I mean, you know that the process that we go through, but for anybody listening, it starts with talking with founders and the people who set out on that original vision and mission for that business to do some really detailed groundwork and often uncover what they’ve forgotten, those kind of long lost goals.
And often when we’re doing those sessions, Rory, we find that people have this kind of light bulb moment where they suddenly realize, oh yeah, I did set out to improve the kind of environmental issues that are happening locally to me. That’s a really bad example, but they lose track. They can lose track, you know, why they set out in business.
And the starting point is to understand that. That’s certainly where we start. Because then that opens creatively and strategically a whole host of doors to say, okay, well, you’re the only financial business who actually cares about the environment. You know, and you set out to do that, you’ve lost your way.
Rory Holland (16:21)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, and it happens as brands evolve and we’re working with one now as a matter of fact, if I won’t say the name of them right now, because we’re going through a process with them, but they had lost their way during COVID due to some of the PPP and payment protections program and some of the other financial grants that were out there. But long story short, here we are a few years later and they’ve lost their way a little bit. So we’re going to help them get back on track.
And so the differentiation in a highly competitive, overcrowded market is critical. You have to understand your audience to be able to speak to them in a meaningful way that’s going to attract and engage them. And it’s just important that that differentiation helps set you up for success to own a portion of the market. And so that brings me kind of to this next point that we wanted to cover.
And it’s all about the brand promise. Can you unpack that a little bit?
Dan Ocock (17:30)
Yeah, two seconds, before we go into promise, I actually wanted to add on to what you were just saying there that sometimes with a business, with a brand, although we’re saying to, I’ve just been talking about the context of when they lose track of their original vision and mission, sometimes, and you’ll have experienced this, a business’s vision can change.
So it’s not necessarily what they set out, but they can find themselves in a different direction. And again, that’s where brand and revisiting it will help you to document and bring everybody in line with that change of direction, that change of vision. So I just wanted to point out that you don’t always go through a brand process to realize what was, but often, more often than not, experience what is coming and where you are headed.
Rory Holland (18:30)
Well, that’s so true in different scenarios with companies that have lost their way. Or often we’re not laying breadcrumbs in our lives, we’re just moving. And so I would add to that, Dan, that I think it’s our experience has been a healthy process. I would almost describe it as therapy a little bit, or I think about the night and Jerry McGuire, when he sat up late and ate pizza and couldn’t sleep and finally had to go to write his dossier about how sports agents should treat their clients. And that was the beginning for him. And sometimes our clients we find have to go through a little bit of pain or discomfort getting to the process. Or sometimes even getting through the process to help them find that position that gives them the biggest opportunity to fulfill on what we’re gonna talk about next, which is their brand promise, but to also find fulfillment in the work that they’re doing.
Dan Ocock (19:35)
I love it. I hope we’re not getting too deep for people, but brand, it is a kind of a deep topic, isn’t it, Rory?
Rory Holland (19:42)
It’s personal.
Dan Ocock (19:44)
Yeah, I think it’s personal, but it also, it’s the notion that it’s, you want to be able to communicate feelings to the rest of the world. That’s kind of a, yeah.
Rory Holland (20:00)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, whether it’s a personal brand or a business brand, financial brands and fintech brands can have so much life and appeal when designed properly with a good foundation. Without a foundation, they can go back to that one dimensional, it’s just a logo. It’s just a color palette. It’s just words on a page. It’s so much more than that. So the thoroughness that goes into a process, and I just want to let the audience know this branding process that we’re talking about laying a foundation might feel like it’s going to take a long time. It doesn’t. We can move through these often in 30 days, 45 days. And it’s so critical to know your audience in the right way, how you’re going to speak to them, how you’re positioning yourselves in the market among the competitive set. And then next, the question is, what is the significance of a well-defined brand promise?
Dan Ocock (21:09)
So brand promise, let’s frame it for the folk listening. So if you’re listening and thinking, well, I’ve heard this term, this brand promise, I describe it and I’ve got my little prompt up here, but a brand promise is a compelling benefit that is authentic and credible. Most importantly, the brand promise must be kept every time.
So that’s the literal translation that I make of a brand promise. Think about it as a written statement that you wouldn’t necessarily, you wouldn’t put that on the front page of your website. This is an internal focused message, but you would like everybody within the business to be able to sit behind, I guess, or when they’re engaging with a client that you can, I guess, rest easy in the knowledge that that brand promise should be fulfilled by everybody at every turn.
Rory Holland (22:13)
Hmm. I’m going to put you on the spot here for just a minute, Dan. For the sake of the audience, can you give an example of a brand promise?
Dan Ocock (22:18)
That’s what I’m here for.
Shall I read the one that I have that I’ve been working on? I don’t need to give names, but I’ll just pop it so I can see a little bit better on here. Here’s an example of a brand promise. We want service members, responders, veterans, and dependents who’ve lost their way to feel recognized again. We support, represent, coach, and inspire them in new ways to reorientate their service heart.
Rory Holland (22:58)
Hmm.
Dan Ocock (23:00)
Now you don’t even know what that, you don’t know that business Rory, do you?
Rory Holland (23:04)
I don’t know that business.
Dan Ocock (23:07)
But could you get an insight as to what perhaps a brand promise is not as literal as to tell you what that business does, but what did you gain out of that? Brand promise. That’s an interesting question.
Rory Holland (23:20)
It’s back to the personal, it’s emotional. I think it’s not a sterile brand promise. Those are empty back to the notion of one dimensional. It’s a three-dimensional conversation that you’re having with your internal team and something they can get behind. And I’m going to use the word believe in. Think about this recent months with the bank failures here in the States.
People quit believing in some pretty major brands. Silicon Valley Bank, losing, failing, over what? Belief.
That brand promise that stood behind Silicon Valley Bank meant something enough that people trusted it and the people in it to protect their money. As soon as that belief system started to come apart and it wasn’t reinforced, look what happened. How quickly, periods of hours really, in a multi-decades old business.
So how important is a brand promise? And then the enforcement of that brand promise and then the reinforcement of that brand promise and that it’s emotional and it connects with the audience? I would say it’s critical to not only success, but to survival.
Dan Ocock (24:48)
I agree, I can’t even add to that because you know how strong and passionate I am about brand. The only thing that sits on that similar level to a brand promise in terms of these foundations that we’re talking about are brand values. And I know we haven’t got a note to kind of cover that part off, but you know, the values of your business and brand are critical as well, because again, they generally will take out five and pull really strong values that, you know, beyond that typical trust, well, if you’re in business and you can’t be trusted, you shouldn’t be there full stop. You know, we need to understand the real values that make the brand tick. And again, like that brand, what can people feel as a result of working with you or buying from you? Those values should kind of filter through in everything that you do basically.
Rory Holland (26:04)
Yeah, and I’m going to put you on the spot again, thinking about patient financing. Not a term you might have expected me to say today. There’s a brand, I’m going to let Dan share the name of it with you. But before we do that, the idea of a patient financing or fintech for payments in the healthcare space, it’s niche and we love it.
Dan Ocock (26:12)
Okay.
Rory Holland (26:33)
And we have a client in that space that’s doing very well in flourishing and helping millions of people. And we went through a brand process with them, as you know, Dan, and there was momentum behind their business. They’ve been around for a while. They also acquired another company in the payment space that was more of a FinTech technology. They were more of a payment servicer. So they wanted to pivot to become more of a payments FinTech company.
So as a result, we went through a process with them. And I feel like they’re a good example of a brand promise that is touching people in a meaningful way every day by helping them pay their medical bills.
Dan Ocock (27:20)
I do remember the brand. I haven’t got the brand promise in front of me. So I can’t quote you on it.
Rory Holland (27:27)
Well, there’s a word that, a couple of words that you used in there that I think they wouldn’t have arrived at. And I’m not going to go through into the brand promise either today, but compassionate financing. And it’s something that’s important to us too, as a mission-driven agency. And a lot of our clients are mission driven in helping the underserved, get financing capital to either start or grow or expand their businesses. But as it comes to that, I think the term compassionate and finance are contrary in ways, depending on who you’re talking to. I think that was neat that you put that together for them.
Dan Ocock (28:05)
Well, I’ll take that as a half compliment. I like it. No, I think that it’s an interesting point and what I actually wanted to just build out from on that is that your background is finance. This more, you’ve spent more time in finance than I have in brand and I’ve been doing it for over 20 years. And when I, for that particular project, I knew nothing about them. And so having that additional set of expert eyes from a completely neutral standpoint can result in some incredible outcomes that you didn’t know were there, that you didn’t know about.
Rory Holland (28:50)
Mm-hmm. When I think that was an example of taking an executive team through a process. And indeed this was pretty committee driven. So it was an involved process to get to this brand and we’ll reveal it in the show notes so you guys can look at it. And if you’d like to see some more details into how we arrived at it, you can hit us up and we can share more details, but ultimately that last piece, going back to the brand promise.
Helping them define their brand promise was a process. To arrive at something that everyone could get behind, I call it like working shoulder to shoulder, right? Like we all need to be working shoulder to shoulder to moving to take that hill. And in this case, the hill we’re trying to take is to serve healthcare systems and then their patients to be able to offer compassionate financing, so that they can actually pay their bills, the hospital networks and hospitals can get, the doctor’s office through the mobile pay can get payments so they can survive and stay alive while their patients can pay their bills and live and survive as well, and they’re not being overwhelmed and overrun by medical bills, which can really kill people literally and bankrupt them.
So it’s something near and dear to my heart. That’s why I mention it. And I’m very proud of the results as a financial marketer, the results that we’re seeing being generated last fall is when we revealed this brand at a major conference in the healthcare space and now today, months later, they’re thriving. I think it’s all a result of the bedrock of success laying the brand foundations and taking the time to do that in a meaningful way.
Dan Ocock (30:44)
I love it, Rory. And I’m actually pleased you actually brought that brand up as an example, because now, and the brand’s called AccessOne. We can say that, can’t we? You know, it’s going to be in the show notes for people to go check out. But they are, they were a really good example of a brand because of their sustained growth and they purchased another business, didn’t they? That meant that they had to reevaluate what we’re talking about here, which were those foundations.
Rory Holland (30:53)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Dan Ocock (31:13)
And when I just said a minute ago about, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you wanna look at your original mission or vision, but your mission or vision has changed, and it had done. And so what we went through with them, helped them to recalibrate, that’s probably a good word, and to get to where they are now. So I’m really pleased you brought that one up, and please go check it out, it’s a good example of the fine work we’ve done in foundation.
Rory Holland (31:25)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and there’s many more. So again, happy to chat with you guys if you wanna look us up.
Dan Ocock (31:50)
Absolutely. I’m looking at my time here, Rory. We’ve talked. We’ve racked up some minutes.
Rory Holland (31:54)
Yeah, we have. Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun. So quick reflection, three key takeaways we talked about in your bedrock for success for laying the brand foundations of your business. Number one, importance of understanding your audience in financial marketing, in fintech marketing. Two, the power of differentiation and differentiating your business in the financial sector. And number three, the significance and I would say incredible importance, foundationally speaking, of a well-defined and accepted brand promise.
Dan Ocock (32:35)
Absolutely. Huge stuff. Shall I give a little insight what’s coming up in episode two for anyone who’s stayed with us this long? Shall I tell them what’s coming up, what they got to look forward to? We’ve got, yeah, we’re looking and we’re talking about guiding the growth. So when we explore these foundations, from that you need to have the right brand strategy, a solid brand strategy moving forward.
That’s what we’re going to cover off and talk about on the next episode.
Rory Holland (33:09)
It’s been a pleasure, Dano.
Dan Ocock (33:11)
Absolutely.
Rory Holland (33:13)
Thank you my friend.
Dan Ocock (33:15)
Bye for now.
Rory Holland (33:17)
Talk soon.
