This past week signaled the start of a new season of college football.

With fall training camps starting, the media gets its traditional first crack at interviews, grabbing headlines, and kicking off the calendar with media days that take turns between the remaining major NCAA Conferences.

As a de facto B1G fan living in SEC country, we have signaled a new wrinkle in our numerically challenged conference names this year.

College Athletics Math is Hard

The Big Ten moved to 18 teams, but it is still being named the Big Ten (aka B1G, thanks to the handiwork of Paula Scher and Pentagram).

The Big 12 is now 16 teams, for what it’s worth.

Finally, in the saddest and a bit comedic of all endings, The Pac 12 is now just two teams.

This year, the Big Ten conference welcomes new additions – Southern California, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington.

To memorialize their entry, which started July 1, all the teams joined Big Ten media days, which is hosted in what now doesn’t seem like a very central location Indianapolis, Indiana.

As someone who doesn’t necessarily find West Lafayette, Indiana, a fun location for a November football game, adding Los Angeles, Eugene, Oregon, or even Seattle seems like a dramatic improvement in my warmer-weather road game options. 

Of the four new kids joining the class, one clearly became the class favorite. As many of you may have guessed, that school was the University of Oregon.

With a name like the Ducks, they already have an endearing quality, but behind the Duck exists one of the most prolific brands in all sports. Being a prolific brand brings with it a responsibility to stand out.

So, instead of taking year one with your head down trying to figure out how to fit in, the Oregon marketing department decided to let it rip.

At the first moment of their new conference, they decided to have a 50-foot inflatable duck floating in the river near downtown Indianapolis. This one simple act captured headlines, social media, and collective attention.

This week, the Oregon Duck is randomly appearing on the campuses of its new Big Ten classmates. In fact, on Tuesday, Puddles the Duck appeared at the Nebraska football conference to commemorate the kickoff of fall camp.

What We Can Learn from the Duck

The way Oregon shows up and shows out say a lot about what is missing with how we communicate.

It’s so easy to fall into a rut when it comes to messaging, programs or solutions. In fact, a lot of people feel comfortable doing the same marketing or program solutions every year.

But, when we are serious and excited about what we do, we won’t be boring.

As Seth Godin reminds us, “People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.”

I’m not saying we need to become the next Gob Bluth, but a little magic can go along way.

The Keys to Being Remarkable as a Wealth Management Brand

1. Your Brand Leads from The C Suite

As much as you would love to hire a solution to make your brand fun, the success of all initiatives starts and stops with your C Suite.

If your CEO is rigid and tends toward fear-based culture, this is a tough one. You may need to get their buy in to have one or more people from the executives lend their face and voice to campaigns.

If your leadership embraces your people, is willing to take risks and brings with them a personality of excitement about the work you do – you can help craft that into a scaleable experience.

MoneyGuide was a great example of this. Bob Curtis, Tony Leal, and the team built a culture that didn’t take themselves too seriously while still producing great work, and in turn, they built one of the best cultures in our industry.

Redtail has been a fun brand from day one. The brand, built around Brian McLaughlin’s love for Golden Retrievers, brings a spirit of positivity and fun to everything they do.

If you’re ever wondering if you’ve gone too far in communicating your excitement and love for fun, just ask yourself if you had to make more than one rule for your handbook based off a fun activity. In MoneyGuide’s example, they had to be told not to bring any live chickens to industry conferences.

Note: make sure your fun is universally fun, never laughing at the expense of someone else or breaking any of those other rules from your employee handbook.

2. Different is Better, but Different is Risky

I’ve probably quoted Sally Hogshead a 1000 times when I repeat her famous phrase “Different is better than better.”

The fact is, it is.

Sally uses the example of Jägermeister.

One review I found on the site RateBeer said that “Jägermeister tastes like melted black jellybeans mixed with mouthwash and regret.”

Despite this, 89% of reviewers on Amazon rate it 5 stars.

Jägermeister went through a process to figure out who they are. With their identity settled, they doubled down on not being the drink for delicious sipping, but the drink that leads to the best stories. Their marketing joyfully reminds us that we’ll likely wince as we partake, but that fun is on the way.

As a financial services brand, we need to do the same. Well, hopefully we don’t need too much wincing. We do need to get clear on who we are, what we are doing and how we can creatively share our vision with the world.

One step in discovering who you are, is to ask your favorite and best clients about you and your firm. Getting feedback about who you are may seem scary but I bet you’ll learn a lot about how you’re perceived that will give you insight you didn’t have before. Remember to stay in the learning mode when you get your feedback (or hire a firm to help you through this branding exercise).

3. Show Up & Show Out

A great brand is present. It understands that its not there to close a deal. It’s there to represent a cause, a mission and experience.

The Oregon Duck has done countless push-ups and has no National Titles in Football, Men’s and Women’s Basketball, Volleyball or Baseball to show for it in the past 20 years. Still, it represents what has become one of College Athletics most beloved brands.

Brand success becomes that sense that people get wherein you need to be present to make it feel complete.

Become the bag of Doritos at the cookout. The ice-cold Coke when you watch a game.

The fact is that we are all unique. Consider this your permission slip to be who you already are and help people experience a culture committed to serving your clients and caring deeply about whatever it is you actually care deeply about.

What is your duck?