Santander brand turns UK high street red

Spanish global banking brand, Santander, is set to start its final phase of a six year rebranding programme of some of the UK’s best known financial high street names. Branches in London and the South East will be the first to make the concluding brand name switch.

Currently more than 1,000 former branches of Bradford & Bingley banks and Abbey feature Santander’s logo.  278 branches of Alliance and Leicester are also to be renamed to Santander. This will conspicuously mark Santander as the fifth largest bank in the UK.

In 2004, Santander acquired Abbey and the Alliance and Leicester. In 2008 it acquired the savings arm of Bradford & Bingley. Now in addition to the branch signs, advertising and literature, the bank is hoping that a wider campaign highlighting value added services will more than compensate for what some consumers may feel is a growing lack of choice in high street banking brands.

Keith Moor, UK Brand and Communications Director for Santander said:

“Santander understands that our customers have a choice of who to bank with, so our business approach is simple, the more our customers do business with us, the more we will reward them in ways that they will genuinely value and see benefit”.

A through-the-line marketing featuring tv, posters and press advertising campaign features red bricks symbolizing the strength and steadiness of the bank.

The rebranding campaign also features Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton.

Santander is also offering a fee-free Zero account for customers with a Santander mortgage and current account.  This features no charges for unauthorized overdrafts.

In Spain, UK customers can use Santander cash machines free, so avoiding the usual fees for withdrawing cash

With around 25 million customers (one million added during 2009 alone) Santander’s marketing strategy sets to challenge the brand dominance of the UK’s traditional ‘big four’ high street banking names: NatWest, HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds and RBS.

The shrinking UK market vs. the expanding global promise

In public relations terms, the global banking crisis shunned and reshaped many familiar UK financial institutions.  Lloyds swallowed HBOS.  The press ousted RBS as pariahs. In response the Royal Bank of Scotland Group is currently diverting consumer’s attention away from the RBS name, concentrating instead on advertising designed to show a soft, politically correct community approach to customers adopted by its NatWest brand.

Whilst Santander’s added value features attract many, those with a modest current account and no overdraft may find it increasingly difficult to distinguish between one high street bank and the next.

Familiar names hope to become one of the family

Hoping to build long-term customers as well as boost brand perceptions, other brand names including Virgin, The National Australian Bank and Tesco are reportedly seeking to either expand or establish their own financial presence on the High Street.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Richard Branson has approached U.S. private equity firm, Blackstone to find funding for a new bid for the Northern Rock.  (At the start of 2010, Branson’s Virgin Money bought a small provincial bank with the license needed to sell savings and home loan products in Britain).

By stepping in as a ‘people’s champion’, cleaning up back-room procedures and so ‘front of house’ awareness of banks, brands are investing in UK high street financial institutions or opening their own new outlets to profit from a ‘double-dip’ brand advantage.

In addition as being viewed as a ‘David’ in the battle against ‘Goliaths’, new brand contenders can gain from traditional long-term customer loyalty. (The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has estimated that only 6% of customers switch their banks in any one year).

Consumers remain loyal to their brands

Convincing complacent customers to actively switch financial brands has always been an uphill struggle. Yet the long-term rewards in succeeding are high. Once a market is captured, a bank can cross-sell a wide range of services including credit cards, savings, insurance … and so on.

With shrewd planning and decisive action for brands still with cash stacked under the bed, the banking crises offers a once in a lifetime opportunity to present a fresh approach to dispirited consumers, and in doing so, add a much needed rosy complexion to the brand’s own financial health.

Jonathan Gabay

www.brandforensics.co.uk

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Goodbye Abbey, Alliance and Leicester and Bradford and Bingley
Ola SantanderSantander takes UK high street brands into the red

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UK brands see Spanish red

May 27 2009 – a momentous day for Spain both on and off the pitch. However it may also turn out to be a day when spectators watching the proceedings will call ‘foul’. Away from the team on the ground but out on the high street, a Leicester brand has joined two other household financial high street names about to go completely into the ‘red’.

The much loved Alliance and Leicester brand, originally established in 1852 under the name, Leicester Permanent Society has joined high street financial brands, Abbey, and Bradford & Bingley who within a year will fall under the red banner of globalisation, in the name of an all-powerful 40 countries wide player – Spanish Santander group.

Between them, by 2010, customers at 1,300 branches will see their credit cards and chequebooks completely ablaze in Santader’s flame red iconography.

As with Norwich Union (now Aviva) customers, for already severely credit-crunched customers across the UK group, the £12m moved will be viewed with scepticism. Indeed, messing about with a respected brand – when financial customers are actually looking for stability seems at the very least, rash. However, António Horta-Osório, chief executive of Santander’s UK businesses said, “Customers trust us as a global brand and they feel very safe about their savings.”

For Abbey, brand name changes have been habitual. In 1849 the National Freehold Land and Building Society was established. In 1944 Abbey National was formed. By 1989 Abbey National became the first building society to float on the London stock exchange. In 2007 Santander stepped in with a £8bn deal – at the time Europe’s biggest cross-border bank takeover.

A&L was formed in 1985 through a merger between the Alliance Building Society and Leicester Building Society. In 1990 the company purchased Girobank. In 2008, Santander stepped in with a £1.3bn deal.

2008 also saw Santander paying £612m for the then recession ravaged and so partly nationalised Bradford and Bingley. The brand started life in 1851 when the Bradford Second Equitable Building Society and the Bingley, Morton and Shipley Permanent Benefit Building Society were formed. In 1964 the Bradford and Bingley merged. In 2000 the organisation demutualised and was floated on the London stock exchange. By the end of 2008 Bradford and Bingley announced 1,900 jobs losses. Bradford & Bingley still exists as an entity and is owned by the Treasury.

The news of the changes comes as another familiar high street name warns of a different kind of ‘condition red’. The mutually owned Nationwide Building Society’s 2008/2009 net profit fell 67% to £162 million from £495 million a year earlier. Underlying profit before tax fell 78% from a year earlier.

Let’s hope the company, like many formerly great British teams doesn’t become relegated to a former league of gentlemen.
Jonathan Gabay
www.brandforensics.co.uk
www.soultraderstruth.com

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