Case Study: Service Branding
The Electronic Funds Transfer Association is a thirty-year-old trade association based in Fairfax County, Virginia. Its core members are organizations involved in the facilitation of consumer electronic payments, such as credit or debit card transactions.
Although it is based near Washington, DC, it is not a lobbying organization, per se. However, it does engage in government-relations on behalf of its members. Unlike more parochial trade groups competing for the same members, EFTA represents many different segments of the same market.
We were able to help EFTA turn this feature into a branding differentiator. This differentiator gives EFTA more credibility when speaking with members of Congress or regulators since they know that whatever position the Association espouses has been vetted across the entire Electronic Payments industry.
Buiding consensus across a diverse industry gives the Association the credibility that allows it to work effectively with the Federal government since credibility and consensus are values shared by both the Association membership and the Federal officials with whom they work.
The result has been effective Government Relations which has led to an increase in membership as more and more organizations realize the value of effective dialog between the Federal government and all segments of industry.
The effectiveness of that dialog depends of those shared values of consensus and credibility which underlie the EFTA brand.