Double entendre

Axis Bank used a short yet intensive burst of advertising to announce its rebranding.

Everybody loves twins," says Sumanto Chattopadhyay, group creative director, Ogilvy & Mather, which holds the Axis Bank advertising account.

The decision to use several sets of identical twins as the abiding visual imagery for the rebranding of UTI Bank to Axis Bank was the master stroke of the campaign. Never mind that he had to hard-sell the idea to the top brass of UTI Bank.

"There was a worry that something as serious as financial services was being reduced to such simplicity," says Chattopadhyay. Still, he won his case.

It's anything but orthodox for a brand to go in for a name change when a study conducted by a global brand valuation firm has only just ranked it among India's 50 most valuable brands.

But then again, UTI Bank "" the fifth largest Indian bank by market capitalisation - didn't have much of a choice. It was required to surrender the UTI brand name to its parent, Unit Trust of India by January 2008, following an impasse over a non-compete clause.

To start the rebranding on the right footing was a brand health check which determined that while the new name should retain the perception of professional and friendly service associated with the legacy brand, it could afford to lose the bureaucratic image.

Starting August 2007, the marketing machinery for communicating the change swung into motion.

"Everything is the same except the name", read ubiquitous billboards with striking images of identical twins. "Our first concern was to reassure 6.5 million existing customers that besides our name and logo, nothing from our network, our technology platform or our management had changed," said Hemant Kaul, president, retail banking, Axis Bank.

So what's in a name, you ask? Certainly more than what Shakespeare implied. The brief to advertising agency O&M was to create a new brand name that was short and easy to remember.

Also, given the bank's growing interests in other Asian markets including Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong, a "global-sounding" name was imperative. 'Axis' was gleaned from a list of over 50 possibilities that were all checked for semantics, pronunciation and cultural references.

"It was one of those 'aha' names," says Chattopadhyay. But it was more than a catchy moniker. As P J Nayak, chairman and managing director, Axis Bank, pointed out, the name Axis "denotes stability and security just as axis in geometry is a line of reference around which all else is measured".

While the name changed, the proposition did not exactly change. In fact, when the new logo was derived from the alphabet "A", a decision was made to retain the house colour Burgundy to strengthen the message that while the new brand was building a strong new imagery to denounce the PSU connotation, it was retaining its service proposition.

But branding specialists expressed some concern. Some say that an opportunity was lost to build a strong new identity around Axis as a bank that would arrive with a difference.

UTI , on its part, was taking one step at a time. The first part of the rebranding campaign entail the communication of a single message in one short but intensive burst across mass media. A prominent feature of this campaign was the heavy use of internal media.

They started communicating the impending change in name through customer account statements and 2,500 Axis Bank ATMs carried the message through posters and ATM screens. "The campaign was undeniable in its wide visibility and 360-degree integrated approach," says Sarvajeet Chandra, founder, Master Sun Consulting.

But the instruction from Axis to O&M was clear "" once the campaign served its purpose, there would be no more mention of the legacy brand. What would then follow was a new television campaign that focussed on each of the bank's key products, minus the twins. That campaign has since been rolled out.

The rebranding exercise doesn't come cheap. Axis Bank is reported to have spent over Rs 50 crore on its rebranding. "A successful brand creates and fosters loyalty amongst the company's key stake-holders.

So if the company manages to attract new stake-holders that it wants to target and retains those that it wishes to keep, it is successful branding," says Samit Sinha, managing partner, Alchemist Brand Consulting. Kaul is sure it will net new retail banking customers, to the tune of 7-8 per cent, month-on-month.

Like Sinha says, what will be key for Axis now is to remember that "re-branding helps the entity to start with a clean slate and build up its own new set of desired associations".

Translated, the cute twin association will go a long way, but customers, old and new, will be waiting to see how the bank's revitalised services will match up.