Loyalty takes years to build, seconds, to break, and forever to repair.
Remember last year when Wells Fargo was outed for aggressive cross-selling efforts, where bank employees created millions of new accounts without customers' consent? And remember how they tried to paper it over with an ad campaign? Surprise, the campaign didn’t work.
“The ad line for the campaign read, ‘Established 1852. Re-established 2018.’ As a result, loyalty metrics for Wells Fargo moved from a grim 65% to 63%.
“Nobody believed the brand was sincere in its efforts to rehabilitate in any meaningful way,” is the way that Robert Passikoff, president of research firm Brand Keys, explained it to Marketing Daily. “The ad campaign was a fiasco. It could have been named, ‘Even though we’ve betrayed your trust, you can really trust us now because we’re really sorry and have bought double-page spreads in newspapers and time on TV so you know we’re serious this time.’”
What did work? “They put CEO and president Tim Sloan in front of a Congressional firing squad, and he very publicly relinquished his position.” Their approval rating moved from 58% to 73%.
This reminds me of another adage, beside the head for this story: "Tell the truth. If you can't, fix it so you can."
Article: Wells Fargo Improves Brand Image, But Not With Advertising