Citigroup goes for brand facelift
Citigroup, the global banking giant, is shrinking but only its name. Executives are prepared to rebrand the company Citi and to fold up its familiar red umbrella and use a logo with a stylised arc above the name. The new name and look, which follows a 14-month review of the banks brand, will be presented to the Citigroup board this week, according to several executives close to the process. No final decision has been made and it could still undergo some minor changes. “We continue to work on our branding effort and will announce our decisions when it is completed,” a spokeswoman, Leah Johnson, said. If adopted, the revised Citi brand and logo will be used at nearly all the vast financial services company’s businesses, including retail branches and its investment bank concentrated in the New York area and showcased around the world. The design is similar to the citi logo that now appears on much of its consumer advertising, office buildings and credit cards. A rollout could begin as early as next month. The plan to unify Citigroup’s businesses under a new, single brand is part of an ambitious campaign by the chairman and chief executive, Charles O Prince III, to better integrate the banks sprawling parts after years of acquisitions, a strategy investors are still waiting to see pay off. Symbolically, it also marks the end of an era. Just as a new name became one of the signatures of a transformative deal by the former chairman, Sanford I Weill, a more coherent brand strategy signals Prince’s plans to shift the focus of a company sometimes seen as a deal machine to one largely powered by internal and international growth. The brand makeover comes out of the playbook of other big companies. Apple Computer shortened its name to Apple to emphasise its broader ambitions for other technologies, like the new iPhone. Several years ago, Morgan Stanley ditched the suffix of Dean Witter, and Federal Express became just FedEx. By shedding the suffix and red umbrella, Prince is severing the banks’ most tangible ties to Weill, Citigroup’s patriarch, who made the old Travelers Group logo a key term of that company’s landmark 1998 merger with Citicorp and who is rarely seen without a small umbrella pin affixed to his lapel. Prince hopes to unify the company under one global name at a time he is urging more cooperation between businesses. Since October 2005, a panel of senior Citigroup business leaders and executives has been evaluating future of the brand. At the time, Prince said he believed that the company could benefit from a more coordinated approach to dealing with one of our most important assets. The company hired Landor Associates, a brandconsulting firm owned by the WPP Group, and put Ajay Banga, a co-head of its consumer businesses, who helped build PepsiCo’s Pizza Hut and KFC franchises in India, in charge of the review. Many in the company were divided. Top investment bank executives, some of whom had been campaigning for the resurrection of Salomon Brothers name, initially thought that the adoption of the consumer brands Citi logo would cheapen their image. In the end, however, Citigroup’s brand committee decided to drop the 137-year-old symbol, which has adorned the banks pitch books, buildings and business cards as well as some executive attire. NYT NEWS SERVICE