Bill-Based Brand Management: Are You Doing It?
By Pat McGrew, EDP, Kodak
If your organization produces credit card bills, bank statements, or any other document associated with paying a debt, you are bound by the upcoming deadlines to become compliant with Regulation Z, the update to the Truth in Lending Act. The new requirements regulate the types of information that must be provided and in some cases, the layout and type size of the information. It provides a challenge to any designer to work within the regulations, but an even bigger challenge to create documents that meet the requirements and still maintain brand differentiation.
First, if you haven’t looked at the regulations, you can find them here. You’ll find it dry reading, but important in terms of understanding the obligations being placed on the bill. Once you understand the new rules, you’ll want to plan your road to compliance. The rest of this discussion centers on a component that is most often overlooked -- maintaining the brand in the world of regulation.
The starting point is to examine the look and layout of the bills and statements you are sending out and identify those features that differentiate your brand. That means more than just the logo, it means the typography, the design sense and the information architecture. Often, this first look makes it clear that the bills and statements haven’t been updated in some time. If you have multiple product lines, you may learn that they all use different versions of the logo, different typefaces and different information architectures. Some may not have any marketing messages at all, while others may have extensive messaging. This is a great time to create a consistent image across all of the bills and statements.
Take a quick look at the company website, the direct mail pieces, and even magazine advertisements and point of sale circulars. This will give you an idea of how the company is positioning the brand in the market. How is the company using the logo? Is there a tagline? Is it used consistently across all of the channels you use to communicate with your customers? If all of these channels communicate using common design schemes, the bill and statement design should incorporate them, too!
Are you using color? Even if you still use pre-printed stock, the color should reinforce the brand. Getting the logo correct and in the correct color is a great start, but using that color to aid in navigation and to highlight marketing messages is even better!
That brings us to the end of this episode. Come back next time and let’s talk about how data and color can work together to promote your brand to your customers.
Pat McGrew, EDP, is the Data-driven Communication Evangelist at Kodak. Her email address is Pat.McGrew@kodak.com, Twitter is PatMcGrew, and blog at http://patmcgrew.growyourbiz.kodak.com.