Just in case anyone at Chase is reading this…. I think that you need to rethink one of your ad campaigns.
Here’s why: One of the first things I tell my clients is to drop the “We’ve been in business for xx years” from the first line of your marketing materials. Why? Two reasons:
- If you are thinking about buying a service or product what do you care about first: Do you care about what the service or product can do for you, or do you care that they have been around for 10 or 20 years? I guarantee you only care about the latter after you know what they can do for you.
- The longevity of your business may or may not be relevant. Need an example? Bear Stearns was founded in 1923; Lehman Brothers was founded in 1850; Washington Mutual was incorporated in 1889**. Need I remind anyone what happened to each of these banks in the last year? Clearly experience doesn’t guarantee success. (And, yes, I’m writing about banks and their marketing campaigns again.)
What does this all have to do with Chase? I was driving down the freeway and saw a billboard that read “Chase. New to California, but not to banking.” (or something close to that — I was driving so not only could I not get a photo, but I also couldn’t write it down.)
If I had seen this advertisement a year ago maybe I would have thought, “Well maybe my rule can be broken in some instances.” But now? I think it just makes my point even clearer. After all, what does the length they have been in business promise or guarantee — especially now that we know huge banks with a long history can go belly up?
So, I’ve said this before and even before that and will say it again: If you are creating marketing materials for your business, I remind you to wait until you’ve made people care before you tell people how long you have been in business.
**These dates are all according to Wikipedia, which is not always accurate. But for the purposes of this blog, the point is that these companies were all around for a loooooong time.
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