CorpComms Magazine

It was inevitable that when Spain's Banco Santander Central snapped up the savings business of ailing Bradford & Bingley and beleaguered Alliance & Leicester last year, it should decide that it was time to ditch their identities (and that of older child Abbey) and rebrand its UK businesses in its own image.

The rebranding will affect 1,300 branches on the high street and 25 million customer accounts. All Abbey and Bradford & Bingley branches will be rebranded by the first quarter of next year, while the programme at Alliance & Leicester will be complete at the end of 2010.

The three are all former building society brands whose roots stretch back to 1847. They will be renamed Santander.

But with the exception of Abbey, which has transformed under the guidance of its Spanish parent, the other brands were tarnished by the banking crisis that saw them seek a new owner rather than succumb to government ownership.

By contrast, Santander has emerged as one of the world's strongest financial institutions and now vies with HSBC for the position of Europe's largest bank. Its flame logo and Santander name can now be seen on the high streets of over 40 countries.

Disappearing brands

Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley are the first bank brands to disappear from the high street in years, although recently Lloyds Banking Group announced it would be closing all Cheltenham & Gloucester branches following its acquisition of HBOS.

When Santander acquired Abbey in 2004, it was unthinkable that it would have been able to impose its brand. There had been a backlash from some retail investors upset that Abbey, once the darling of the stockmarket and the first building society to convert to banking status, had fallen into foreign hands.

Also, the high street bank had just been through a disastrous £11 million rebranding exercise which saw the bank drop its 53 year old roof shaped umbrella (signalling its roots in the mortgage market) and the word National from its logo. It dropped the tagline Because life's complicated enough in favour of an image based on the catchphrase Turning banking on its head.

This rebranding, which was unveiled at a press conference where chairs and tables were stuck to the ceiling, involved the replacement of branch fascias with a muted colour range of pinks, blues and greens. The brand, abbey [complete with lower-case a], was depicted in a fuzzy grey or white colour.

Past history

The rebranding was attacked at the following annual meeting by shareholder Norman Edwards who said: 'I think you have done the most magnificent job of camouflage since the Second World War. As a result of painting them a funny green colour with sideways writing on, the branches have suddenly disappeared. You can stand three doors down from a branch and not see it.' Others likened the branches' new look to that of a dress shop.

But six months after Santander took control, however, the Spanish bank started to tinker at the edges to 'align the Abbey corporate identity' with its own. A new logo incorporated the flame symbol championed by Santander and was a fiery red colour.

The latest rebranding will cost Santander about £12 million, but will also form part of the cost of integrating the three banks under one parent which, in turn, will generate £180 million in savings. Once the IT system is in place, any customer of Abbey, Alliance & Leicester or Bradford & Bingley will be able to transact in all Santander's UK branches. 

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