Absa – Brands & Branding 2018 - Absa

Absa – Brands & Branding 2018

Posted: October 24, 2018

How does a bank deal with its major shareholder dramatically reducing its investment, and with the prospect of re-branding not just across a country – but across an entire continent? And all this, within just one year?

This is the challenge that faced Absa when, in March 2016, Barclays PLC reduced its shareholding in Barclays Africa Group Limited. A challenge that led Absa, a bank that was traditionally risk-averse, not to an expected safe evolution, but to a complete revolution. This challenge affected everything about the group going forward, re-defining the entire business from the ground up as part of the journey to create a new and iconic brand.

Absa began the journey by holding over 130 000 conversations with stakeholders, employees, customers and regulators. And with the voices of hundreds of thousands of people heard, it was unanimous: Absa should be the name of the organisation across the continent. It should be bolder, braver and more courageous – and move away from being the typical bank. The people wanted a bank that was new and different; something they could truly believe in. They wanted a bank that was digitally led, and that could just get things done.

A ground-breaking story of audacity, bravery and heart

With a presence in over 12 countries, Absa had the opportunity to reposition itself as an African bank, with a strategic imperative to enable growth on the continent. With this driving the business, the bank’s new positioning of “Bringing possibilities to life” was born. While many brands have a similar intent, for Absa this positioning had to recognise and reflect the unique nature of the countries the brand operates in, in order to be meaningful and relevant to their people, and to connect with their hearts and minds. To achieve this, Absa undertook to capture the commonality that connects the people of Africa, the way they do things, and their ability to see opportunity even in adversity. This spirit was captured in a new word coined by Absa called Africanacity: “A new word for an age-old attitude unique to our continent. A continent defined by its ingenuity, tenacity, creativity, audacity and positivity. It’s Africa’s ability to turn any adversity into a fresh opportunity. It’s about how we will get things done, inspired by Africa. It’s our promise to our customers, to bring their possibilities to life.”

A new word for a new bank – Africanacity /’afrik(a)nasrti/
Noun
The distinctly African ability to always find ways to get things done.

To bring Africanacity to life, Absa started with the brand’s identity. The capital letters of the amalgamated banks of yesteryear fell away and a fresh new identity was created, with the brand name no longer an acronym, but rather written as a lower-case word, with a contemporary and approachable feel.

The new logo incorporated the name into a circle, reflecting the connected communities of our continent, and always putting the customer at the centre of what Absa does. The spaces in the circle reflect the brand’s flexibility and openness to the continent’s endless possibilities.

Absa also recognised that, with such a variety of languages spoken in Africa, the identity needed to ‘speak’ to people, without using words. And so the ‘gestures’ were created; a universal visual language that would unite us – bringing meaning in new ways.

The colour red has always been an identifier of the brand, so the new identity built on this, with Passion Red as a primary colour that had equity with customers, now expanding into a full spectrum of beautiful hues inspired by the colours of Africa.

The biggest brand launch in Africa

On 11 July 2018, Barclays Africa Group (BAGL) changed to Absa Group Limited (AGL) and the repositioning came to life.

With the big idea of Africanacity, Absa went equally big with their launch, introducing the new brand to Mzansi with over 180 outdoor pieces celebrating the new dawn of the brand, sharing the bank’s new identity and vision in 55 print ads, inspiring the nation through 2 TV ads, and immersing South Africa in Africanacity with over 400 pieces of digital and social content, not to mention putting Africanacity on everyone’s lips with radio ads that explained how to pronounce the word.

Absa also rebranded thousands of ATMs and hundreds of branches, transformed 9 offices and sent 300 drones into the night sky for one exceptional launch.

Creating THOUSANDS OF brand ambassadors, from the word go

Absa realised that the most important market they would speak to pre-launch, was their own team. The new brand was introduced to the “A-Team” through a comprehensive pre-launch internal marketing campaign, ‘Absa Africa United’, aligning them to the new values of the organisation and mobilising them as ambassadors for the brand. Three new brand values were shared: Brave, Passionate and Ready, creating a real sense of excitement and drive in the team to get behind their brand. Post-launch, 95% of staff fed back that they felt part of a new team “with wide-ranging commitments to new behaviours that would support the evolution of a new culture”.

A giant leap in the right direction

Within three weeks post-launch, a total of 18 million people had seen Absa ad campaigns across social media, and the ad recall rate was 20% higher than any competitor bank. The biggest concentration of ad viewers was in the 25-34 age category, followed by the 18-24-year-olds.

Across the continent, more than 371 million people were exposed to the new brand across all media platforms. And while it is way too early to measure return on investment on what is an ongoing, rolling campaign, early indications suggest brand equity attributes – such as public perception of Absa, attributes such as innovation, ease of doing business, trustworthiness, and pricing – are trending upwards.

Changing the game

Absa has already continued with this impressive trajectory launching ChatBanking for WhatsApp on 11 July this year, having signed up 10 000 customers by the end of the month.

The bank’s challenge continues as the group moves towards converting more than 400 Barclays branches in Africa to Absa, while retaining the goodwill that Barclays brand built up over the last century.

One thing is certain. Absa will take on this challenge with Africanacity, a determination to do things in a new way, and a commitment to bringing our continent’s possibilities to life, now, and in the future.

Absa - Brands & Branding 2018

Posted: October 24, 2018

Absa - Brands & Branding 2017

Posted: October 5, 2018

Absa understands the profound impact that sports, arts and culture can have on a nation collectively and on individuals.

Absa’s first year as a standalone African brand

On 11 July 2018, one of South Africa’s biggest brands was relaunched to the market after the separation from Barclays PLC. David Wingfield, Managing Executive: Marketing and Brand, Absa Group Limited, discusses how, over the past 12 months, the Absa brand has grown into its bold and passionate personality to deliver true Africanacity.

The relaunch of the Absa brand last year was an opportunity to reshape a forward-looking, digitally-led and standalone African bank with global scalability. The challenge was in maintaining the gravitas of the Barclays brand on the continent while allowing Absa to create its own destiny as a proudly African bank. This was a complex process with its fair share of challenges.

When Absa launched its refreshed brand in South Africa on 11 July 2018, the reception was largely positive, with some negative feedback. It was a huge shift in the brand’s identity that asked customers to revisit their perceptions of an entity that has operated in South Africa for decades.

The rebrand saw multiple agencies collaborate to develop the brand’s new identity as a partner in financial services.It also taught us many lessons about what to do, but also what not to do when we move to rebrand our African business later this year.

When the team started conceptualising the rebrand they spoke to more than 130 000 customers across the African continent. With the Barclays brand in countries outside South Africa and Absa in South Africa,the brand had to understand its customers’ needs before started on its journey. Their feedback, together with the advice from top brand experts, helped the brand reach the conclusion that it would become one brand that speaks to Africa; and that brand would be Absa, but Absa needed to be an entirely reinvented brand.

Reflecting on the process, one of the biggest lessons was around how important it is to remain flexible and allow for the brand to lead the strategy.

This was a particularly valuable lesson in light of how quickly Absa had to pull the required elements together to ensure the new Absa was the relevant, Africa-powered, bold Absa that we have today. In a relatively short period, the right people were set in place, the right agencies on board and the right attitude in play. An integrated above-the-line campaign was launched, with more than 40 branches and 150 ATMs rebranded, and the internal digital channels converted. It is possible to achieve the impossible when you have commitment and passion.

The overall rebrand of Absa had to redefine both internal and external benchmarks, transforming legacy manual systems into market-leading, digital channels that were both relevant and scalable.

One of the biggest challenges faced was conveying the new ideology and digital principles in all branding material so that customers could see how the brand had re-imagined their access to the digital world through its solutions, services and platforms. The bank had to re-think everything, from the bulkheads of the ATMs to the logo and brand identity. Absa has proved that it is possible to take a traditionally analogue brand, redesign it and transform it into a digital first, analogue second, entity.

Another lesson learnt was how the little things can actually become the biggest headache when it comes to a rebrand. There were around 48 000 touch points to rebrand, which included around 23 million references to ‘old’ Absa and Barclays – everything from branch signs to branding on contracts, to references in web copy and more – it all had to be replaced with new Absa branding. This entailed a complex web of coding, messaging, logo redesign, refitting and refurbishing. Taking an eight-letter word (Barclays) and replacing it with a four-letter word (Absa) also had implications in coding, and the process turned out to be far more complex than initially envisioned.

The rebrand also meant a complete refocus of the overall brand strategy as a business, and so a new strategy appropriate for an African business was created. It becomes easier to drive the business forward, both internally and externally, if you start by aligning your business strategy with your brand proposition.

Finally, the brand had to find a word or phrase that would define its journey, its company, its vision and its future. There was none suitable, so they invented their own – Africanacity. Africanacity is the distinctly African ability to always find a way to get things done. It is built on the tenacity, audacity and creativity of our people and our continent, as well as the brand’s commitment to walking alongside customers as they navigate their potential and realise the possibilities of Africa.

Much has been said about Africanacity and the new-look brand with its 15 bold shades of red. Research gathered over the past year shows that while it has taken South Africans time to wrap their minds around the change, there is no doubt that the new, friendlier, digitally relevant, button-like logo is much more liked than the previous, austere look.

It has been a challenging and demanding, but also an educational year. Absa is now taking the lessons learnt into the continent, as it starts replacing Barclays with Absa in the countries where it has a presence. As the brand prepares to launch, it will use what it learnt locally to carry a bold and passionate vision into these markets.

It is sure to be another interesting year ahead.

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