Capital One Rebrands ING Direct, Puts Brand Equity At Risk
November 21, 2012 3 Comments
Capital One announced that it will drop the ING Direct brand (along with its highly recognizable orange ball logo) and rename the unit Capital One 360. While it may make sense to reinforce the Capital One brand across its operating units, this move comes with some risk.
It turns out that ING Direct has considerably more positive brand equity than Capital One. Take a look at banking results across many of our 2012 Temkin Ratings:
- Temkin Experience Ratings: ING Direct (72%) vs. Capital One (60%)
- Temkin Loyalty Ratings: ING Direct (44%) vs. Capital One (27%)
- Temkin Trust Ratings: ING Direct (59%) vs. Capital One (31%)
- Temkin Forgiveness Ratings: ING Direct (27%) vs. Capital One (14%)
The bottom line: Hopefully a lot of ING Direct rubs off on Capital One
About Bruce Temkin
I can tell you, I dropped ING Direct like a hot potato when I found that out. As much as I loved them, I have no love for Capital One… The branding should have gone the other direction. (Not that it was possible.)
C’est la vie… (I moved to Simple)
You nailed this one, Bruce. As a long-time customer and evangelist for ING Direct, this feels like a move in the wrong direction. The 360 brand just feels bloated and ‘old school.’ I’ll wait until after the change to see if I want to switch services, though.
Jim: I’d love to hear back from you with a comment in 6 months about how you think it’s going and if you’ve become an evangelist for Capital One 360…