Capital One

New:  Logo, visual system and retail bank branches

Launched:  January 2008 on Web;  at retail, pending

Story in brief:
Capital One is preparing to rebrand these North Fork branches with its own brand. But does it have a swoosh, or not? One branch does, another apparently doesn't...  

 
February 2008: North Fork branches on Long Island and (below) on Park Avenue

The story, in any case:  In 1988, a consultant named Rich Fairbanks sold Signet Bank on an "Information Based Strategy" to grow its credit card business. This worked so well that in 1994, Signet Bank spun it out as Capital One, with Fairbanks as CEO.  With the help of intrusive advertising featuring obnoxious characters ("What's in your wallet?"), it prospered in credit cards, and added car loans and mortgages and savings products.  So what's next? Buy some regional banks, of course; become... like the old Signet Bank! So Fairbank acquired Hibernia in Louisiana and Texas, and North Fork in New York, giving him some 742 branch locations -- and set about rebranding them all as Capital One. 

But the existing Capital One wordmark, a quiet and confident presence that teamed well on credit cards with a Visa or MasterCard symbol, was seen as too passive, not sufficiently assertive, for retail banking.  The 'swoosh' addition was designed internally sometime in 2007, and enjoyed a soft, rolling launch to employees, and to the public (via www.capitalone.com) with the message "Hope you like our new look." There was no news release...  unusual, for a rebranding of this scale and significance. But speaking for Capital One, Pam Girardo now [27 February] tells us that...

"Over the years, we’ve been diligently working to transform Capital One from a monoline credit card issuer into a diversified financial services company. We’re now one of the largest banks in the country, and it’s important that we transform our identity to be more aligned with a retail environment. We believe this identity better represents a progressive and dynamic company within an established category.  The logo was designed internally, although we engaged several agencies to assist us with the visual expression / house style work."

From other sources, we can confirm that Landor is among the "several agencies" retained for house style work.

Credits:
C.E.O. - Richard D.  Fairbank
Logo modification design - Internal
Visual system & applications design - Landor (NY)

First Impressions:
Strategy: No problems. Rebranding the acquired branch systems, and strengthening the Capital One logo for that purpose, is a no-brainer.
Execution: There's no nice way to say it. Adding a red swoosh, to Capital One's admittedly boring but functional, dignified wordmark, shrinks the brand to the level of... a candy bar, or a comic strip. Then executing it poorly, running the swoosh under the letterforms while failing to resolve the  overlap (which turns the O into a blue-rimmed frisbee) adds to the injury. The result is a mark that indeed succeeds in calling attention to itself, but at the cost of degrading its visual environment.

Landor will, I am sure, make the best they can of it -- but was given a pig's ear to work with. 

As a leadership story, frankly this one is difficult to understand. We await the branch unveiling, and associated launch communications, with interest. 

Other comments:
New Yorkers will miss the fresh, truly lively  green-yellow street presence of Roger van den Bergh's North Fork Bank design. In its place, we have another blue & red bank to keep Chase and Citi company.