‘Boring is cool’ for Canadian banks
by Maximillian on 28/06/09 at 12:52 pm
In any other industry at any other time, trying to build an ad campaign around stability would send shudders through marketing mavens. But there has never been a better time to be a stodgy Canadian banker.
“I guess boring is cool and Canada is cool,” said Jim Little, chief brand officer with Royal Bank of Canada, explaining the bank’s decision to play up its nationality in an ad campaign aimed at U.S. and British capital markets.
A few months ago, you might never have known Canada’s No. 1 and 2 banks, Royal Bank and Toronto-Dominion Bank, were big players in global banking.
Canada’s success in emerging nearly unscathed from the financial crisis changed all that. Caution has a new cachet, and the nation’s bankers are embracing their inner maple leaf.
“We were always worrying about how we’d be seen, because when we’re in the United States, we act like Americans,” said TD Bank chief executive officer Ed Clark, whose U.S. retail operation has been marketed as “America’s most convenient bank.”
“Now it’s actually a positive to say, yes, we happened to be owned by a Canadian bank.”
It was perhaps U.S. President Barack Obama who opened the door to Canadian banking bravado when he hailed the nation’s sound banking system back in February. The compliment followed the World Economic Forum’s ranking of Canada’s banking system as the world’s soundest.
Before long, marketing executives at the big banks noticed a newfound interest in Canada’s conservative credentials among capital markets and investment banking clients.
Recent Comments