CFA Institute is a pretty unique organization, particularly when it comes to its branding. At a membership organization such as ours, enhancing the brand is a direct benefit to our customers. The more understood and respected the CFA charter is, the more understood and respected CFA charter-holders are. That’s different from other business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) organizations where I’ve led marketing.
It’s In The Letters
People don’t make a decision to enter the CFA program lightly. It is an enormous undertaking culminating in a rigorous series of exams. Roughly 1 in 7 takers pass all three levels to become CFA charter-holders. It doesn’t end with the exam, either: CFA charter-holders embark on a path of lifelong learning to ensure they are always at the forefront of the investment profession. It’s about as long a customer life cycle as you can imagine.
The letters “CFA” are the brand. Those three letters after someone’s name mean something important. And what it means to be a chartered financial analyst is the very essence of our brand. Our mission is “to lead the investment profession globally by promoting the highest standards of ethics, education and professional excellence for the ultimate benefit of society.” Lofty? Yes. With it, comes great determination and responsibility. My role as CFA Institute’s chief marketing officer is to translate those qualities into a brand: ensuring financial institutions and investors understand the value of those three letters is at the heart of the job my team does every day.
Hub-And-Spoke Is Just The Beginning
It’s different from a for-profit B2C company. There are similarities, sure. Take Ford, for example. The company has a global brand that promotes awareness and drives demand. It has independent dealerships around the world that benefit from a strong core brand, utilizing the company’s brand standards and benefits in whatever way they need locally to sell their product to their customers.
But here’s where the big difference comes in: Enhancing the overall Ford brand is of no great benefit to a Ford car owner. Will they feel better about owning a Ford if the brand is elevated? Maybe, but the end game for Ford is to sell the car.
Our end game is different. We work to ensure the CFA designation — our brand — is understood to be the global gold standard in investment management. That benefits our customers in two key ways: First, financial institutions want to hire CFA charter-holders because they trust they are well-trained investment professionals. Second, investors trust that a person with CFA after their name has deep knowledge and deep integrity. Trust is the uniting element.
Trust And The Long Life Cycle
The work is closer to what universities experience with their “members,” who also have an incredibly long customer life cycle. The higher the esteem in which an institution is held, the more graduates’ degrees are “worth,” the higher the level of job they can obtain and the more they can give back to the university as alumni. In turn, the institution can recruit higher-caliber students. It may even be able to charge higher fees and tuition.
Many elements go into the establishment of educational prestige, including published research, renowned professors and prominent alumni. And all these things contribute to the institution’s brand, into which huge efforts and budgets are poured to achieve success, as measured in the aforementioned ways. And if the efforts are successful, the public trusts the university’s brand and what it stands for, hopefully conferring that trust to the graduates of the institution.
Again, it all comes down to trust. That’s where it matches the purpose of any consumer branding, including Ford’s. All the marketing in the world really boils down to one thing: Does your customer trust that your brand promise will come true? Break your promise, and you lose your customer. Keep your promise, and they’ll trust your brand again and again. Of course, it’s more than just marketing, but marketing is the place where all the elements that comprise a brand come together and are pressed out to the public.
The more you put into your brand, the more your customers and prospects will get out of it. In our case, we work to achieve the “highest standards of ethics, education and professional excellence” that translate to the strongest brand in the investment management industry. It’s my job to ensure financial institutions, investors and the general public understand the value behind the three letters — CFA — every time they see them.
