Santander kill off High Street brands
Posted by dan on Thursday, May 28th, 2009With trust in the banking sector at an all-time low, Santander’s decision to rebrand all of its UK High Street brands including Abbey, Alliance + Leicester and Bradford and Bingley over to Santander could be seen as a risky one. On the other hand it’s no surprise that the second-biggest banking group in the world (after HSBC) wants to roll out the changes when they reportedly plan to save £180m a year by integrating the three businesses.
Who remembers the £11m Abbey rebrand in 2003 shortly before the Santander takeover? Abbey adopted a soft, all lowercase, pastel coloured brand identity with the new tagline, ‘turning banking on its head’. Rebranding certainly isn’t new to Abbey customers.
It is, after all, five years since Abbey was taken over by Santander and in that time we have seen the incorporation of the Santander ‘flame’ logo, typeface and colour into the Abbey branding. What’s left to change, other than the brand name? As for the other two brands, their takeovers are still fresh and for that reason the rebrands could be seen as more risky.
However, bank customers are extremely loyal and Santander’s decison to roll out the rebrands by the end of 2010 suggests steady change rather than a swift one. Lets not forget that it will be an enormous rebranding exercise, and customers can probably expect some technical glitches along the way. Perhaps most interesting will be the advertising campaigns, direct mail and incentives that will follow, all in the name of turning one, or in this case three recognised brands into one ’super’ brand.
Tags: High street brands, Santander
