Featured cases

2006


1998

When Jean-Paul Votron, the former head of Citigroup's European retail banking operation, became ceo of Fortis in October 2004, he promised to expand Fortis' commercial and private banking business across 25 European countries in the next four years. To achieve such growth, he felt it would be necessary to strengthen the Fortis brand.  "To grow market share" Mr Votron said, "we will migrate our main businesses towards one Fortis brand and increase Fortis’ visibility. We shall approach the customer as one company under one flag."

Fortis' biggest problem, this suggests, has been a weak brand awareness. Outside its domestic markets of Belgium and the Netherlands, the company itself admits that the Fortis name has been underpromoted. To change that, in the beginning of 2006 Fortis launched a comprehensive global marketing and advertising campaign which includes a new logo (a change of wordmark color, plus a minor change in the symbol to improve its functionality in small sizes), a corporate tag line for the group, and a brand makeover.

The main goal is to elevate public profile. By dropping all sub-brands like Fortis Bank/Banque, Fortis AG, Fortis ASR and MeesPierson, the Fortis brand will become more clearly a monolithic brand. Tom Vanderbauwhede

1998 logo by Landor Associates
2006 modifications by (TBD)

Submitted by: Tom Vanderbauwhede, 26/01/2007
Status: Estimated by Tom Vanderbauwhede
Category: General Financial
Country (HQ): Belgium and the Netherlands