CorpComms Magazine

Last year, six years after buying Woolwich, Barclays announced that the former building society would be taking a much higher profile within its operations as the dedicated mortgage arm. Barclays immediately launched a rebranding process for Woolwich to update its image in keeping with its new role.

'Woolwich was a very successful building society, with great heritage and equity in the UK mortgage market,' says Claire Hilton, head of brand, advertising and media at Barclays. 'In the retail world, Woolwich is to Barclays as iPod is to Apple. As such, the aim with Woolwich's new look is for it to retain its own identity to help it stand out and compete in the busy and frenetic UK mortgage market.'

The job of creating a new identity for a mortgage lender in the UK was always going to be a challenging one, so Barclays hired brand consultants Interbrand. The bank also used other agencies to help bring the new brand to life: Bartle Bogle Hegarty focused on above-the-line areas such as television, poster and newspaper advertising; EHS Brann concentrated on marketing to customers within branches and using Barclays' own database; and Dare developed the bank's online image. As Woolwich remains firmly part of the Barclays stable, the new look had to be harmonious with that of the parent. 'It had to share a number of key visual elements - the use of blue, a shared typeface family and logotype font, as well as an explicit Barclays' endorsement for all communications,' explains Hilton. 'Our brand positioning is 'inventive spirit', and it is that inventive spirit that delivers market-leading mortgages for our customers. We share inventive spirit with Barclays and our Woolwich heritage is similar.'

For example, while still a building society, Woolwich launched Offset, the UK's first mortgage that allowed customers to offset their savings against their loan. 'Woolwich Offset was seen as a revolutionary new mortgage, and Woolwich staff are consistently seen as proactive, helpful and spirited, making the positioning just right for us,' says Hilton. The new look was designed to appeal to, and include, Woolwich's staff as much as its customers. The bank wants to strike a chord with staff and make them feel they have lots of ideas to contribute. The new look is also designed to suggest an energetic, ideas-centric, creative organisation - 'something each of us will feel proud to be part of,' adds Hilton. 'We believe inventive spirit can help us to convey to our customers fresh thinking, innovation, creativity and the concept that we are always trying.'

share me: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Tweet