Last week we took a look at how 2 financial institutions are managing their brands in the face of deregulation.

Deregulation, on the face of it, is probably a good thing for most industries. It dislodges inertia, frees up innovation, inspires increasing competitiveness and encourages mergers and strange bedfellows. Financial firms have jumped into this wild west mix, offering every single product that might have a monetary connotation and few that don’t.

But for consumers this is all pretty confusing.

The argument for financial services deregulation was usability-based, consumer-centric and well thought out. But it still confuses otherwise intelligent customers. Here's why.

Basically, the argument goes like this:
a) when times are good you put your money in a high risk high yield instrument, such as stocks or a hedge fund.
b) when times are bad you put your money into a fixed income vehicle, such as a cd or a savings account.

The point that was made is simple – the same person/entity at different times has need of both these services, so why should they have to go to different businesses?

And indeed there have been simplifications. I bank at Wachovia, and if I were to make them my sole monetary solution they could operate as a one stop shop - offering consumer and business banking, investment and fixed-income solutions, even as an insurance brokerage.

But just because things are simpler for the end user, doesn’t mean these financial brands are healthy. I contend that the schizophrenia of these brands has increased and where managing your money is easier than ever, deciding where and with whom to manage it is nigh impossible.

A good example is The Bank of New York. The Bank of New York has a golden history as a local retail operation first started by Alexander Hamilton in 1874. It still serves the wealthy and elite among New York’s gentry, for instance. The other side of the company is a global competitor offering services to institutional investors, such as bulk processing for mutual funds. These two halves of the business couldn’t be more different in type of service provided, target audience or core competency.


Global logo


Retail banking logo

So it gets confusing. This page with the JPMorgan Chase announcement is a perfect example: http://www.bankofny.com/htmlpages/ydp.htm Who is the target audience? Who needs to know this or is interested?

The old red logo will still be used, for reassurance purposes, I suppose, in the retail side of the bank. Maybe it will be phased out over time. Maybe the Bank of New York is making the distinction between its two halves evident so as to make its retail division more marketable in hopes of selling it.

Logo Critique: The new global logo is a bit of a problem. It is reminiscent of stock certificates, European currency and such, and does suggest to my eye a little bit of a hologram or some advanced watermark. But I wonder about the “the” – is it needed? And will the logo hold up when faxed, photocopied, faxed again and then put on a name tag? The whole magic of the mark is its color, which of course won’t reproduce well in grayscale. Can you see this mark in shining steel on a 50 ft sign? Nor can I.

Labels: Fine Financial Branding