BBVA (2019)Copied

BBVA had grown through acquisitions and alliances and kept local names in its main markets: Bancomer in Mexico, Compass in the United States, Francés in Argentina and Continental in Peru. After a year and a half of internal work and nearly 5,000 surveys of customers and non-customers, it announced in April 2019 that it would unify the brand. Global head of digital sales and marketing Carlos Pérez Beruete told El Economista that consumers linked BBVA with digital channels and the legacy names with traditional banking, and that the switch did not provoke rejection.

Chairman Carlos Torres Vila said that in a world of digitisation and globality, customer experience matters most, and a unified brand was the natural next step. Chief executive Onur Genç said the change would better convey the group's digital and global reality across more than 30 countries and about 75 million customers. Turkey's Garanti became Garanti BBVA. The bank linked the identity to its value 'We are one team'.

The new logo kept familiar elements, the blue and white and the capital letters, but introduced a new typeface and design made for the digital environment, El Financiero reported. Torres Vila and Genç presented it to staff at a live event watched by nearly 126,000 employees.

BBVA's announcement set out the operating logic. It wanted a single value proposition and a consistent customer experience, like those people expect from digital companies, built through one development process that allowed worldwide collaboration and faster speed to market. That meant customers in every country could get the same products, such as its award-winning mobile banking app and FX trading platform. Seen that way, the local names were not heritage to protect but friction to remove.

The official launch came on 10 June 2019. Nearly 1,000 offices, about 13 per cent of the network, woke up with the new brand, including headquarters in Madrid, Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Peru. Digital channels changed first, over the weekend before; the rest of the more than 8,000 buildings were to follow over six to twelve months.

The business logic is strong: one name, one app, one experience. The logo itself is a modest refinement that does its job. The loss is local: Bancomer had a century of meaning in Mexico.