World’s biggest bank partners with Hong Kong branding agency for private banking unit
31 October 2018
ICBC is the world’s largest bank by assets under management. ICBC (Asia) Private Bank, its private banking division, safeguards the personal wealth of Hong Kong’s high net worth individuals and their families. It also offers a wider range of retail banking services to these customers.
The private bank enlisted branding agency Stepworks to strengthen brand recognition and elevate its position in the market. Stepworks helped ICBC (Asia) Private Bank build a new brand identity and develop a print and OOH campaign expressing the bank’s identity and services.
Banking on branding
Stepworks began by crafting a brand model for ICBC (Asia) Private Bank summarised in its positioning phrase, “We work hard to make wealth easy”. Then the team enhanced the subsidiary’s visual identity to complement the parent brand.
The new brand extended its design language to include a signature bracket icon derived from ICBC’s logo. A premium shade of brown also helped differentiate the brand from other personal banking services in Hong Kong.
To raise brand awareness, a launch campaign was developed alongside guidelines and other collateral. The ICBC campaign featured a series of split-images that applied the positioning phrase as the headline.
The updated brand identity and campaign were well-received by the ICBC (Asia) Private Bank team, and brand recognition improved among target audiences.
