Dear Loan Officer: What is Your Mission + Purpose?

Dear Loan Officer,

Below is a short video where I challenge you to clarify: What is Your Mission and Purpose?

It’s times like these where putting in a little extra elbow grease can be valuable to clarifying your brand identity. Here’s some additional tidbits from a recent article 5 Ways to Do Smart and Responsible Marketing During COVID-19 (edited for relevancy):

Why do you Do what you Do? Use your mission + purpose as your North Star to remind yourself what your brand stands for, and what that means in the context of COVID-19. Lean into human stories, let your principles set the tone, and don’t be afraid to be vulnerable.

Be Personable. You don’t have to strip your brand of emotion. For example, offering your well wishes or using imagery of people smiling isn’t, in itself, offensive. In fact, it can be refreshing for people to recall normal life, and to be hopeful for the quarantine’s end.

Think about your future messaging. During the depths of the 2008-09 recession and the early years of economic recovery, many brands pivoted to campaigns that promoted optimism, hope, and humanity. (You may remember Coke’s “Open Happiness” campaign from that time period.) As AdAge’s Bob Garfield put it profoundly at the time, “There is always a bull market for optimism when there is a bear market for everything else.”

Create employee/colleague-generated content. Poll your teams for their favorite Netflix binges, share your tips for maintaining office plants while everyone is away, or post fun photos from your video conferences. What are your employees/colleagues doing in their spare time? How are people working together to keep things light? What are people doing to stay healthy and prepared? This quarantine is an opportunity to spotlight your people and your culture. Remember, too, that people will crave more human interaction through social media, video conferencing, etc. Fill that need for both your employees, colleagues and customers.

Remember: The more you show your human side, the more we can all feel connected—even if we’re stuck inside. It might sound cliché, but it’s true: We’re all in this together.