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Thursday, January 31, 2008
Canara Bank's re-branding
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Posted by at 8:25 PM | Permalink


The latest among Indian PSUs/Nationalised banks looking for a makeover (after LIC, Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, SBI, Bank of India etc) is Canara Bank. The re-branding communication is by O&M, and the core message is this : "We change for the ones we care about". The idea is successfully executed through a series of concepts:

1. The south Indian mother who is learning Punjabi in preparation for the arrival of her daughter-in-law etc.
2. A young lady learning about cricket to keep pace with her husband's obsession etc.

The execution of these ads is really good, but the key thing that struck me is whether these banks have actually changed. I have been keeping my eyes open for Canara Bank in the last few weeks and as expected nothing has changed. The re-branding is restricted only to the logo and tagline. The insides of their ATMs and branches are as shabby as ever, and I haven't heard anything new about the quality of their service. Ditto for Axis Bank. Ditto for SBI.

I think re-branding needs to be a complete exercise - which starts from within and then moves outwards. This means that the re-branding needs to start with your people and they way they deal with customers. It then moves to all other brand experience points such as the website, call center, ATMs, branches, billboards etc. Merely changing the visual identity of a brand serves no purpose if the underlying attributes haven't changed.

And so I propose the first law of fishmarketing:
Re-branding is an inside-out process, not merely a change in logo and tag line.

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1 Comments:

Blogger yell said...

Canara Bank is ( possibly ) trying some last ditch attempt to insulate itself from further erosion of younger clientele.

RBI is expected to make it easier for Foreign Banks to do business in India after April 2008.

The effectiveness of the campaign depends on it's intent. The danger is in a ( possible ) assumption that a consumer's preference of a bank can be influenced by a logo-change.

1:53 AM  

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