Top 20 taglines financial brands may now regret

by Staff, Marketing 25-Nov-08, 08:50

LONDON - Which financial institution had the motto 'Where vision gets built'? Answer: Lehman Brothers, which went to the wall back in September.

As the cliche goes, hindsight is a wonderful thing; nonetheless, there have been some rather unfortunate taglines for financial brands over the years. Given the current overriding lack of trust in the sector, quite a few may want to have a long, hard think about how they position themselves.

Can anyone name the institution that uses the rather curiously worded brand promise "Trust Thy Name is.."? Don't worry if you can't, the brand in question (Life Insurance Corporation of India) is not entirely relevant to this market. Still, how well would that line work over here we ask ourselves.

For its sheer energetic brazenness, Marketing's favourite is 'Whoo Hoo!', the now defunct motto of the Washington Mutual (WaMu), which spectacularly went under in September. It has since been rescued by JP Morgan Chase, and in the blink of an eye it introduced a somewhat crass replacement: 'We Love Chase. And not just because they have a trillion dollars'.

At the Marketing Forum in Chepstow last week, financial advertising expert Ian Henderson from The Engine Group named his top nine financial brand howlers. They are listed below, but we have also added a few more to his list with our reasons. We want to expand this list to 20; are there any gems we have missed?

Lehman Brothers: Where Vision gets built.

AIG: The strength to be there.

Abbey: Turning banking on its head.

Dexia: Because the short term has no future.

Capital One: What's in your wallet?

Fortis: Here today. Where tomorrow?

IndymacBank: You can count on us...

Life Insurance Corporation Of India: Trust They Name is...

WaMu: Whoo Hoo!

Axa: Be life confident. (Can anyone be?)

Barclays Bank: A big bank for a big world. (It promptly announced a programme to close hundreds of branches)

Icesave (owned by Landsbanki): Clear difference. (Is the difference that you can't get your money back?)

Northern Rock: As solid as a Rock. (No, it wasn't really, but in the absence of recalling the real one, it amused us. Can anyone recall what it was?)

Comments

Antony P - 25/11/2008

From a direct marketing campaign sent out by AIG a few days before the U.S. government had to rescue them: "If disaster strikes, will you have the protection you need?"

Daniel Farey-Jones - 25/11/2008

Citibank - Citi never sleeps. And you don't if you have money in it.

Paul McShane - 25/11/2008

Halifax - Always giving you extra \(really? I'm sure your staff wouldn't agree right now, how many will be made redundant)

Nicola Clark - 25/11/2008

Northern Rock once ran a campaign with the strapline 'Playtime is over' how apt....

jezwaspsrule - 25/11/2008

Labour party of which Brown was Chancellor - 'Building a better Britain'

spikegullsrule - 25/11/2008

Whoever thought Bradford & Bingley was trustworthy enough to convince consumers to 'Sleep Easy' has had a bit of a nightmare...

Jeff Pilcher - 26/11/2008

While we're on the subject, I invite interested parties to check out "The Biggest List of Financial Slogans Ever": http://thefinancialbrand.com/2008/09/03/financial-slogans/