You're about to launch a new brand: new corporate identity, new marketing campaign and collateral; and a big employee brand kickoff party (since they're the brand ambassadors). All systems go.

However, your customers see the same old thing - business as usual. How can that be?

Most marketers concentrate on the outer facing brand elements we just described and overlook many of the inner facing components: form letters, notices, alerts. Things that might not have been touched in years, and many of which read no better than a ransom note. When your customers get the same nasty communication on bright new stationery, what's changed in their minds?

A comprehensive brand audit solves the problem and looks at every component of your brand. Read about it in detail in the January issue of the American Banker's Association Bank Marketing magazine.

Ken Greenberg, President and CEO of Long Island advertising agency Austin & Williams, is an expert in all aspects of financial marketing, Predictive Analytics and Geo-Mapping. To read more about Ken, visit his bio section on the A&W Web site.