Brand Ng

Citi and CIT can't be happy about ads from CIT Bank

I get that CIT has been around for a long time and operates in financial services for small and medium businesses, but I hadn't been seeing ads for their online bank until recently.*

They literally named their consumer savings organization "CIT Bank."  I can't see how this is good for them.   It only creates confusion in the marketplace.  

Even if drafting off of a bigger brand  is their strategy (and not a very good one, by the way), it really doesn't pay to try to confuse themselves with Citibank. The Citi brand, of course, isn't particularly spotless.

Mostly, it feels sneaky and untrustworthy.  Brands are a shorthand for trust, and few categories of businesses have a greater trust problem than banks today.  By adopting and marketing a name so close to its much bigger rival, CIT has done itself a disservice.

 

 * Apparently CIT Bank was started in 2000, although the ads forthe CDs only started recently.  It's one thing to make CIT Bank a quiet, hidden institution that helps round out their service portfolio to SMBs.  It's another to advertise it as a consumer service.

a closeup of the CIT Bank logo

Punny store names aren't good when you have to explain them

  

Let's say you want to use a punny or metaphorical name for a retail store.  

If you need to explain the meaning of the name, then the name is probably too cute. 

Either that, or you have a fairly deep problem in your brand proposition and communications.

Moreover, when the "true" meaning of the name is too close to what you actually do, you may feel compelled to refute that original meaning in your ads. There are ways to make that work*, but it's an uphill battle.

Love,

Brand Ng (It's not a marketing discipline...  it's a branding blog for a guy with a last name of Ng!)

 

* for example, an ad campaign that sharply defines the differences between the primary meaning and what you want the phrase to mean could be successful.

I am very sorry, but I am never going to call this stuff "Beembo"

Baby bear... you cute, naive bear.  How could you have let this happen?  Did you not think the Onion's (2001) commentary was enough ridicule?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that a "Bimbo Sandwich" made from a couple of pieces of your toast would carry an unexpected connotation.  

Then again, wait a minute, what are you doing with that bread?  Hugging it?  Fondling it?  You've known this would happen all along, haven't you?  You sick, demented bear!

 

Xerox begs movie execs to zip it about xeroxing

Yes, I xeroxed this ad to aid discussion

    Xerox® has been placing ads in the Hollywood Reporter begging the entertainment industry not to use the Xerox trademark as a verb or a noun.  At first, I thought this was a tongue-in-cheek joke--which would have made for a pretty great ad.  But on close reading, they seem serious.

    Never mind that the ad gives the reader zero reason to help Xerox.  Never mind the strange, circular use of puns that reference their zipper example ("come undone," "keep it together" - uh, yuk yuks all around, I guess).  No, let's not worry about those executional things.  At the heart of the brief: Xerox doesn't want people to use the word "xerox."

    It's as if it's the 80s, and Xerox is that punk-ass kid saying, "That's my name. Don't wear it out." 

    But in this era of proliferation, to be so dominant as to be generic is an extremely enviable position.  We should only be so lucky as to be the standard by which all others are judged.  We google things we want to know about.  We windex our windows and shove our leftovers in tupperware, or if the item is too big, we saran-wrap it. 

    In fact, I doubt that Nintendo is particularly pleased that thumb strains are now mostly blackberry thumbs rather than nintendo thumbs--even as the term carries a negative connotation.

    Don't cry about your place in the world, Xerox.  Poor baby.. it'll be ok.  Here, have a kleenex.

P.S. To Hollywood producers: please feel free to use the name of this blog as a verb or a noun.  For example, you can freely say that "Xerox was brandnged today over the use of the word xerox."  I promise, I won't send you cease and desist letters.

New (sort of) upscale CVS stores

Apparently, for the last year or so, CVS has been renaming its PharmaCare specialty stores as CarePlus CVS/Pharmacy.  This door in Hell's Kitchen in NYC is an upscale boutique-style pharmacy, with a holistic-medicine feel.   Obviously, it caters to a different segment than the regular CVS/Pharmacy but essentially keeps the same name.  Seems like it could be confusing to me... as it seems it once was to CVS management.

Apparently, the name of both the back end and the retail portion of the specialty pharmacy division at CVS has gone through a lot of changes, including the removal of the "CVS" moniker as seen in this 2004 press release:

PharmaCare announced today that the name of CVS ProCare, its specialty pharmacy division, has changed to PharmaCare Specialty Pharmacy. The name change will reduce market confusion and convey the synergies that exist between offering pharmacy benefit management services along with specialty pharmacy services.

I guess the 2004 move didn't really reduce market confusion in the way they would have liked...