Vincent Fernando

The 'De-Branding' of Merrill: BofA Drops the Bull on Its Own Foot

User 437050, sorry but you are incorrect: "The revamp, created by The Brand Union, will be backed by an international ad campaign for its global commercial, corporate and investment banking businesses. "
www.marketingmagazine..../

"Bank of America Merrill Lynch is one of Bank of America's three major businesses, providing broad financial services to mid-market, corporate and institutional clients."
www.thebrandunion.com/...

Note investment banking above, for example. Merrill was clearly way ahead of BofA, yet this is part of the rebrand. Actually for most businesses internationally ML would be ahead of BoA, yet they are in the rebrand. So I'm not sure what business you are referring to, when you say that the old ML brand will live on. Unless many outside sources are wrong, it's basically all being rebranded to the logo above.

The 'De-Branding' of Merrill: BofA Drops the Bull on Its Own Foot

We realize that a lot of people are still there. But they have dropped the brand from much of what they do. My understanding, at this point, which fair enough could be wrong, is that they will continue to use the old brand for the US retail broking. Note I mention this in the piece and compare it to what Citi did with Smith Barney. But I also point out that the Smith Barney brand was diluted... it became just a gimmick for the retail guys... institutional broking dropped the brand. As I understand it, Merrill is doing the same thing. This strategy made Smith Barney a retail broking (which is a joke for professionals) gimmick. If BAC does the same, then the Merrill brand will be relegated to a similar position. Again, I could be wrong, but as I understand it, they are dropping the old ML brand from institutional broking, investment banking etc... and only keeping it for US retail broking.

The 'De-Branding' of Merrill: BofA Drops the Bull on Its Own Foot

The company lived up to its rep in most of what it did. Like with most financial companies hit by the crisis, one unit essentially took down the entire company despite most businesses within Merrill doing very well. Again, note we acknowledged that the brand took a hit from the crisis. But it takes a lot more to destroy a well established brand. The name still pulled a lot more respect in finance than Bank of America. Again... especially abroad.

The 'De-Branding' of Merrill: BofA Drops the Bull on Its Own Foot

Merrill is still far more recognizable and elite, especially internationally, than Bank of America. BAC makes sense for the US retail bank, as we say in the piece, but come on, Merrill is 10x better for high finance. While Bank of America may have been better than Nations Bank in the past, I think it's absurd to think that Bank of America has a stronger brand than Merrill, again, especially if one thinks internationally.