Two weeks ago, we wrote a post about the opportunities for banks to re-frame their narratives in the light of the financial crisis and the long-term trend of increased social-context of brands. One of the opportunities we highlighted was the entry of non-banking brands with civil missions into the financial services arena. It appears that O2 has thrown its hat into the ring with NatWest as a backer.

Mobile operators have been trying to edge into financial services ever since the WAP days and the promise of mobile transactions. But the ratio of trust-to-competence was too low to make a real go with customers. The financial meltdown has created new opportunities for trusted brands to enter this sphere. Virgin looks set to buy Northern Rock and now O2 has become the first mobile operator to enter into financial services.

“The strength of our brand and relationship with our customers gives us the ideal opportunity to take O2 into a completely new market,” said Ronan Dunne, O2’s UK Chief Executive. “By bringing a fresh, transparent and customer-focused approach to pre-paid cards, we plan to drive this market and take a significant share. In partnership with NatWest, O2 Money is delivering new ways of helping our customers better connect with their money.”

The O2 brand narrative ‘We’re better, connected’ speaks to progress and unity, a civil mission that is rather similar to Orange’s ‘Together, we can do more’. These overlapping narratives demonstrate the fierce competition in the civil arena in telecom. O2 has become the market leader in the UK through consistency of the brand and clever deals like sponsorship of the Millennium Dome and winning an exclusive agreement with the Apple iPhone.

O2 Money looks like an interesting way to leverage the brand’s equity and widen the perceived competence of the brand. While the ‘We’re better, connected’ brand certainly has relevance to telecommunications, we can see it extending into other areas. In our opinion, the O2 narrative needs to be supported as they come under increased pressure from Orange (notably the successful Orange RockCorps programme) and work to widen their offer, but the brand is certainly breaking new ground and seems to be going from strength to strength.

TNS reports that trust is returning to banks, so this window of opportunity is probably going to be open for a limited time. Watch this space.

The Virgin brand ranked as a Civil Branding ‘advocate’ in our latest survey (just below ‘hero’ status). Nationwide is also a Civil Branding ‘advocate’, The Co-operative is a ‘hero’, and we think that Virgin having a presence on the high street, as perhaps Virgin Bank, would present some great Civil Branding narratives.

There’s room for Virgin attitude on the high street. The scenario of Northern Rock metamorphosing into Virgin Bank looks quite pleasing and even symbolic of closing the loop on economic recovery given Northern Rock’s role. This symbol of recovery would play nicely to the Virgin narrative of ‘people’s hero in the pursuit of industry change’. It would also play to the ‘inclusive’ dimension of Civil Branding, bringing people in society together.

So what sort of brand communications would we like to see from Virgin Bank? In an earlier post about the Virgin brand we talked about how Virgin manages to sustain rebel status whilst being socially inclusive. So the ‘inclusive’ dimension is already in the bag. Having a topic that is seen as worth discussing by society (our ‘important’ metric) in the brand communication strategy, expressed in a way that starts meaningful conversations (our ‘influential’ metric) would provide all the essential ingredients of a socially-progressive campaign.

The three pillars for creating more civil brands are [1] Inclusivity: ideas that bring us together as a society [2] Importance: ideas that everyone agrees are worth discussing and [3] Influence: ideas that have the power to create debate.

So, one could suppose that rebellious brands like Harley and Virgin would score low in Civil Branding’s research since they are, by definition, not going to be perceived as inclusive. Harley Davidson does score low in our research, but Virgin achieves a Civil Branding ‘Advocate’ status (scoring near the top percentage of Civil Brands).

Harley: Working that Hell’s Angels look

Harley: Fiercely loyal

Both brands snub ‘the powers that be’ openly, both brands are icons for their rebel status and both are seen as adventurous, irreverent and libertarian.  While Harley owners buy their bikes expressly for non Civil Branding qualities, Virgin enjoys mass market appeal but is able to maintain a rebellious image whilst promoting messages that are seen as positive for society.

So how does Virgin do it? Richard Branson often makes the point that Virgin will not enter into an industry unless they can turn it on its head. This ambition is about doing business in a radically different way than the incumbent and then ‘rubbing their competitor’s noses in it’ through its marketing promotions. So, Virgin ends up creating a ‘people’s hero’ narrative in the pursuit of industry change.

Virgin also employs a lot of humour in its brand, laughing at itself and others on a regular basis. Tongue in cheek humour seems to be the brand’s favourite tool as demonstrated by this indulgent and hilarious  flashback from 1984.

Harley Davidson, by contrast, offers a perspective on life that is highly individualistic, focused on freedom for the individual. From our research, people feel that Harley’s communications encourage its followers to reject wider society because of its efforts to control the individual and block important liberties.

Brands like Harley Davidson demonstrate that not all brands need to be Civil Branding heroes to be successful. Harley’s market share for big bikes is 50% in the US and about a third in the rest of the world. However,  in psychological territory, there are far more civil positions to take up than uncivil ones (probably the topic for another post). Lastly, Virgin clearly demonstrates how to build a rebel position and at the same time be seen as a positive force for change in society, creating a more complex and meaningful brand into the bargain.

Virgin: Che Branson as promoted by FT

Virgin: 25 Years and still Red Hot

The paper that outlines our civil branding effort and explains a technique for creating more civil brands is now ready for download. Inside, you will find the following:

[1] Synopsis of the civil branding idea and its importance to marketers and society.
[2] Step-by-step process for creating more differentiated, more civil brands.
[3] Case studies from Citibank, Dove, Benetton, HSBC and others.

+ Download here