In previous posts, I’ve been highly critical of brand marketing, insisting that it’s a waste of time and money. I was wrong. There are situations where re-branding is absolutely necessary. For example, if your firm does something so heinous that the brand will be forever tarnished, you’d be nuts NOT to rebrand. The only question in your mind should be: “are my customers dumb enough to fall for it?”
According to the New York Times, the financial institutions that flushed our economy down the toilet are busily trying to re-brand. GMAC bank is re-branding itself as “Ally” while AIG is re-branding as AIU, with a new logo and tagline. I think re-branding makes sense in this case, because, short of having their C-level execs commit suicide, there’s nothing else these firms could do to convince the public that they’re not a bunch of predatory, greedy idiots.
However, clever as those re-branding exercises are, they pale in comparison to the re-branding of the erstwhile “Bank of the Wichitas”. This re-branding is so spectacularly brilliant that I’m saving it for a separate page:
