‘Life would be a lot easier if we were a Kit Kat’: Practitioners' views on the challenges of branding financial services successfully

Abstract

It has been posited that brands play an important role in the marketing of services in terms of differentiating offerings which are essentially intangible, and in providing a ‘relationship fulcrum’ which forms the focus of both external and internal marketing efforts. Such arguments have also been applied specifically to financial services. Additionally, it has been posited that branding financial services successfully presents particular challenges. There has, however, been a paucity of empirical investigation, and very little, if any, counselling the views of practitioners in financial services. This study provides an insight by presenting an analysis of data collected from senior marketing practitioners in financial services. In particular, practitioners' views as to the role, importance, saliency and challenges of branding in financial services were obtained from a series of in-depth interviews with managers from a broad range of retail financial services institutions. Findings show that practitioners feel that brands do have an important role to play in the marketing of retail financial services, particularly in terms of differentiation. A number of practitioners also highlighted the importance of the brand as a relationship focus. Practitioners admit that financial services brands are generally weak. Managerial implications are discussed and conclusions drawn.