And while the messages about safety and soundness are certainly important – bankers need to go beyond simply telling their customers and their communities that they are safe and secure. With so much uncertainty towards financial institutions, do we really expect consumers to accept marketing messages as fact?

Perhaps the most important issue here however, is the fact that we’re seeing so much of the same – institutions in communities across the country are promoting the same messages, using the same media, and relying heavily on the ‘insert bank name here’ kind of advertising. At the same time, many of these institutions continue to conduct business the same as in years past.

If community banks are going to take advantage of today’s market opportunities, they need to work to strategically differentiate themselves from their competitors – in a way that means something to their customers or target customers. This simply isn’t going to happen with unsupported, generic, ‘insert bank name here’ advertising.