Experiential Branding and Marketing Glossary

Our style of experiential brand development and word of mouth marketing for banks and credit unions can’t be found in textbooks. So it should come as no surprise that we use terms you may not have heard before. Here’s a quick brief in our lingo, to get you up to speed.

Brand
The sum total of all the experiences everyone has, all the time, with your bank or credit union.

Branding
The process of shaping the perception people have of your bank or credit union, through managing the experiences they have with it.

Comfort Zone
That really cozy place in your organization that lives next to status quo.

Complacency
The smooth-talking, shoulder-sitting devil that keeps your company away from progressiveness, but oh so close to obscurity. See “comfort zone.”

Entrepreneurial
Thinking like a business person, not a banker. Playing to win, not avoiding losing. Applying lessons from other industries. Scrappy.

Experience
How a brand is seen, felt, heard, smelled and tasted.

Experiential Brand
A brand that creates an entire 360-degree experience that envelops people. An experiential brand is one that can not only be seen, but also be felt, heard, smelled and tasted.

Find the Story
CBC’s own introspective process that helps banks and credit unions discover and regain a laser-like level of clarity about what their brand stands for, in ten words of less, without using the words “people,” “service,” or “community.”

Guerrilla
Non-traditional way of interacting with customers and prospects. Creates impact by catching people off guard.

Gratuitous Creativity
Creative for the sake of being creative. Pointless work that marketing and advertising agencies specialize in. Intended to win the agency awards and more black clothes.

Mass Marketing
Expensive old-school bank and credit union marketing tactics that reach thousands of people who could care less. 180 degrees from “micro marketing.”

Media Agnostic
We’re not just advertising, Web design, or direct mail people. We’re brand development experts. As long as we meet your objectives and create experiences that build your bank or credit union’s brand, we don’t care what media we use—and neither should you. We can tame any medium.

Micro-Marketing
Making a huge impact on a small number of people. See also “word of mouth marketing.”

Multi-Sensory Marketing
Related to experiential brand development, multi-sensory marketing is about creating marketing programs that appeal to all five senses.

Non-Traditional Media
Exactly the opposite of newspaper, television or radio, newsletters, etc. We like it.

Position
A stance. Any stance. Stake a claim within your market or industry and stick to it. Own some real estate in people’s minds.

Prove the Story
Demonstrating your bank or credit union’s brand story through actions and behaviors, in every single touch point—not just in marketing.

Social Media
Web-based channels that facilitate interaction between people.

Spine of Steel
The physical attribute that allows CBC to tell clients what’s in their best interests and not just what they want to hear.

Story
Your company’s past, present and future. Use your touch points to create multi-sensory experiences that tell the world what you’re all about.

Tell the Story
Articulating the story with words and images in communication pieces like marketing materials, advertising, websites and internal communications.

Think Big
What we tell our clients to do each and every day. Proving the story is thinking big.

Touch Point
Any interaction between the world—your customers, the public, the media and your employees—and your bank or credit union. Each interaction creates a brand experience.

Touch Point Audit
CBC’s proprietary method for assessing brand strength by measuring the percentage of opportunities a bank or credit union has taken advantage of to tell and prove their story.

Viral
An extremely contagious way of spreading your company’s messages. Very powerful.

Word of Mouth Marketing
Giving people something worth talking about, and making it easier for that conversation to take place.

100 Proof
The ultimate status a brand can achieve if it successfully, and continually, proves its story. CBC is 100 Proof. The ideal result of a touch point audit.