Changing Brand Image: Merryl Lynch goes Hi Tech

In an effort to address its rather unexciting corporate brand image and show people that it is really a part of the modern hi-tech world, Merryl Lynch has re-engineered its icon - the bull - and embarked on a major advertising campaign that coincides with its entry into online trading.

The company has introduced low-cost online investing for customers, and has had to break away from its traditional brokerage image, especially as it has lost out to the successful online brokerages such as Charles Schwab Corp. and E*Trade Group Inc. Some of the new commercials show real life customers telling how profitable their relationship with the company has been, and other advertisements show the Merryl Lynch bull icon in a digitalized wired-up format. Whilst the bull remains as a symbol of the power and durability of the Merryl Lynch brand, the new hi-tech bull signifies readiness to fight in the e-commerce market place. One two-page newspaper advertisement in the early stages of the campaign showed the new bull with copy beside it that read...

Be quick
Be smart
Be ready
Be prudent
Be daring
Be conventional
Be contrarian
Be global
Be local
Be backward-looking
Be forward-looking
Be strategic
Be wired
Be unwired
Be thoughtful
Be spontaneous
Be wise
Be bullish

The contradictions give the impression of a very schizophrenic brand personality, and the 'everything to everyone' nature of this copy may well suggest that the company does not know what it really wants to be seen as. Reported reaction to the campaigns has tended to polarize like the copy, with dissenters and enthusiasts. The commercials have also been subject to criticism, some saying that the customers profiled do not look confident about the firm's new offerings, with some clearly not understanding and others confused. As usual time will tell whether perceptions have changed regarding the brand image, but it does appear that Merryl Lynch may not have done enough to convince the public that it has what it takes to be a major player in the digital world.

By contrast, advertisements run a few months earlier were much stronger and more focused, and carried much clearer emotional messages, for example:

IF YOU WANT TO SEE SOMETHING
Done, just tell some human beings
It can't be done. Make it known that
It's impossible to fly to the moon,
Or run a hundred metres in nine-
Point-nine seconds, or solve Fermat's
Last Theorem. Remind the world that
No one has ever hit sixty-two home
Runs in a season. Stuffed eighteen
People into a Volkswagen Bug. Set
half the world free. Or cloned a sheep.
Dangle the undoable in front of
the world. Then, consider it done

The tag line was "HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT" with the Merryl Lynch name and the original bull icon.

Whether agencies are changed or not, companies should really think very hard before making radical changes to their presentation of the brand. As a case study, ask yourself what you would have done to give the brand a new look without losing the equity from the past.

Click for the latest branding cases.