There were problems with the company’s logo as well. ‘A three-spoked roundel whose hub encapsulated the letter A, as in Allied, formed the company’s logo.’ This logo was decided to be used, but was not a good choice. The logo was too blended and people could not see whose logo it was just from looking at it. An other problem with the logo was that it looked very much like Daimler Benz’s logo, which was not good because people can confuse the two companies. The royal blue was picked as the cooperate color which was not a good choice as well. The color was too cold and this color is used very often in banking, which was not the image they were trying to create towards the customers.
The television and print ads were not well designed either. The television add had a butterfly being born with the slogan “you bring out the best of us” on the bottom of the add. This was supposed to show how the new customers come to the company, but the problem was that not many people understood the similarity between the butterfly being born and the new customers coming to the company. The print ads were also designed badly. The add had the slogan “our customers are the most important people in our organization and to fully satisfy their needs, nothing less than the best will do,” with the picture of the butterfly being born. This was again not understood properly, and the slogan was too long we think.
The last problem in the corporate image was the image of the building. The outside of the building was too old and run down. If you looked at the buildings on the High Street the retailers have spent a lot of money on the design of their buildings and when you looked at the Allied Irish Bank’s building it was not a nice picture. An other problem with the building was the interior of the building, because the color blue was seen all over. This would not have been a problem, since the company color should be seen in the main office, but the problem is that the color blue is too cold. It makes people “scared” and makes people feel uncomfortable.
Well these were the problems with the corporate identity at the Allied Irish Banks. It is very important to pick the right name, color, image, logo and building for a company, since people will make their opinions about the company through their first impression.
For this question we will outline the possible solutions for the problems within the bank’s corporate identity. We will give a possible solution to the conflicts within the company’s employees, an other possible color and shape for the company’s logo and so on.
The first problem to find a solution to is about the conflicts within the company. Workers do not get along with each other due to the different cultures mixing in the company. One solution to this problem could be to have special people keeping contact with the offices all over the world. With this solution there would be one person talking to the office in a different country, and the cultural differences could be solved like this. An other solution could be to have “cultural” week at the different offices such as; in England for example they would talk a little about the American customs. Like this the workers could learn a bit about each country, and later on they could meet with the other countries employees to meet them in person.
The second problem with the company was its name. For example the bank that Allied Irish bank PLC bought in America kept its original name. They should name the bank the same way as all the other branches all over the world, since this is the way people can recognize a product. This does not mean that they should name the First Maryland Bancorp Allied Irish Bank, since there are problems with this name as well, but they should call it the same as they call their offices in England or Ireland. So the solution to this problem, from our opinion, is to rename their office in Maryland. The problem with Allied Irish Banks as a name is that in Northern Ireland the term Irish can be bad and good at the same time and they cannot afford to have people not wanting to do business with them just because of their name. An other name for them would be MLP Bank. This would be a short abbreviation of Munster, Leinster and Provincial Banks names. Like this people could see what banks joined together to form the new bank, and also there would be no country mentioned in the name. People would not be able to tell that it is a foreign bank only if they look into it real closely. So the new name of the bank could be MLP Banks all over the world.
There was a problem with the company’s logo as well even though they just made a new one. Here is an example of the new logo with the new color that could be used instead of the old boring one. Like this it is not confusable with any other company’s logo.
The colour that the company should use is red instead of blue. This color catches the attention of people, but it is not a cold color. The red is used for the new logo’s design and an old fashion scale is put on the logo as well. The scale can give the impression to people that the company has been doing business for a long time, which is a good thing, since people tend to trust companies which have been around for a while. The name of the bank is written on the logo, so people will never confuse the logo with any other company’s logo.
There were problems with the company’s television and print ads as well. The television ads were well designed, but they were not really understood. The butterfly being born is a good idea, but there should be signs explaining what this means while the butterfly is emerging from its chrysalis. They could say that ‘we take care of new customers just like the chrysalis does to the butterflies’ and than have the end line ‘you bring out the best in us’ written on the last picture. The print add has a too long sentence written on it, so they should change the ending or catch line to a shorter one which explains what is happening on the picture as well. An example to this is ‘we take care of new customers just like the chrysalis does to the butterfly’ and than ‘let us take care of what is really important to you.’ This is striking, since this will make people think, that ‘yes’ my money is important to me, so why not put it in a bank where I know it will be in good hands.
The last problem with the bank was the problem of its image. The building should be renovated so it looks like a modern building, with some red touches on it, since the red is the new company’s color. The inside should be re-done as well with some modern designer furniture and have the inside give the impression to the customer that he is at home, and he can feel himself comfortable there. The inside’s scheme color should be the red as well of course, but only a little touch of it, because we don’t want the customer to feel uncomfortable from all the red colors. The color red calms people down.
These changes are only ideas and could be used to make the company a bigger profit in the long run. These changes should be made for this bank, according to our opinion. This way the bank will do a better job, from our point of view, attract more people, and be more profitable than before!
