What makes a brand real? When customers feel it

How does you make a brand more than a promise - a real experience for your customers? Rob Camper, a strategic brand director at Cadence Bank, talks to Brandonomics about how they've turned their branding into something customers can feel.

Robin: Hello and welcome to this edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies. I am Robin Tooms, VP of Strategy at Savage and my guest again is Rob Camper, a strategic brand director at Cadence Bank. So Rob, welcome back to Brandonomics.

Rob: Thank you. It’s great to be back.

Robin: Well, what I love is all of the branding stories that you’ve shared about branding at Cadence Bank, but it’s great in theory, at least it sounds great. So I wanna know how do you turn that into something, a brand experience that’s real?

Rob: A lot of times as brand professionals it’s one thing to talk about oh, we constructed this brand and we came up with these witty ideas and this clever marketing scheme or strategy and here’s our brand. A lot of people think that a brand is just simply a promise. That’s part one, but not at all the complete picture. A brand is only real when your audience, when your customers, they feel it and they know it and they go, “Uh, yes, BMW, you are the ultimate driving machine because when I’m driving it it’s the ultimate driving machine.” We know that our brand is revolutionary when our customers perceive and they see it, they feel it and they experience it and they interact with an associate, they see the products and they’re like, “Ooh, this changes everything. This is a revolutionary idea.”

Robin: So how do you make sure all the associates at the bank are living that experience?

Rob: It really happens from the inside out. It’s not just a bunch of clever campaigns and a cool brand platform that sounds businessy and relevant. It starts from the inside when every one of your people, your associates, your employees from the ground up understand it, live it, they own it themselves and that it’s integrated. What we call internal integration. When they own it, you’re done. You’re home free. We were very intentional about coming up with four core values that brought about a revolutionary idea, about owning it. Meaning responsibility, about doing right, integrity, about innovation, fresh thinking and team work, collaboration. So if we all feel that, of course our customers are gonna feel that. Of course it’s going to be revealed in every aspect, even into our marketing as well because it’s gonna be solidified when they interact with us.

Robin: Right. So thank you for sharing that living the brand from the inside out story. We appreciate that. This has been another edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies.

Cadence Bank is a regional bank with more than 100 locations across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas. Cadence offers personalized service and knowledge of the particular challenges of its customers. Along with a commitment to leading the banking revolution, Cadence is passionate about giving back to the communities where its employees live and work. https://cadencebank.com/