Sat on a bench the other evening, off the clock, and a thought I've been circling for months finally crystallised.
For many years, marketing had a religion.
It was called Integrated Marketing Communications — one brand, one voice, one message, disciplined across every channel, because a fragmented voice meant a fragmented brand.
I was raised on this gospel.
Still don't think it was wrong. I just don't think it's the whole story.
Here's what got me thinking.
Most Fintechs don't sound like bank brands.
And my question was: Why?
Their Twitter voice is a completely different animal from their app copy, which is different again from what you'd hear in one of their community events.
And yet nobody who uses their product or service would say it feels like a confused brand.
How does that work? #nobejujubedat?
I think the answer is a phrase I have come to see as the holy grail of marketing effort: ‘coherence of intent’
To understand this, think of Consistency Vs Coherence
'Consistency' is about the surface — same colours, same words, same tone, everywhere.
'Coherence of intent ', on the other hand, is deeper. It is about the 'why'.
It is about the floor underneath the surface — everyone building the brand pointed at the same "why," even when the "how" looks completely different room to room. (As it increasingly does in digital-first executions.)
Most Fintech social teams, product teams, and community teams don't sound alike.
But they all seem to agree on whom they're serving and why it matters.
That agreement is what people actually feel as trust.
The sameness (of execution) was never the point.
Once I saw it first in Fintech brands, I started seeing it everywhere.
It's quietly behind why the marketing conversation has shifted from "communications" to "growth" — why more marketing leaders are being asked to own a number, not just a calendar.
Not because campaigns and creativity stopped mattering, but because boards are realising that a brand can look inconsistent and still be completely coherent.
In fact, some standout brands are known for being deliberately inconsistent while retaining coherence of intent.
Proven.
It works...
And it unleashes creative license and creative multipliers across channels and campaigns.
So the mindset shift is to stop asking whether your marketing is consistent.
And start asking whether it's coherent — whether everyone building your brand is pointed at the same intent, even in spaces that 'don't look like your brand'.
Coherence shows up in the consistency of intent in executions and not necessarily the consistency of executions… Selah