Capital One Rebrands ING Direct, Puts Brand Equity At Risk

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