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Reuters | Canadian Press |  Photos
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Monday August 20 9:50 PM EST |
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TORONTO (CP) - Royal Bank (TSE: RY) is changing its brand name and
logo. The bank said Monday that, effective immediately, its new corporate
brand name will be RBC Financial Group and it unveiled a new logo that
alters the look of its "Leo" lion symbol. "The move symbolizes the evolution that the organization has undergone
in recent years, expanding beyond its Canadian base into the United States
and other international markets," the bank said. The bank said "RBC" will become "an umbrella" under which each of the
company's five business platforms will operate worldwide - RBC Capital
Markets, RBC Global Services, RBC Royal Bank, RBC Insurance and RBC
Investments. Other subsidiaries will also change their names: for example, Liberty
Insurance of Greenville, S.C., bought last year, is now RBC Liberty
Insurance. However, the company's legal name, Royal Bank of Canada, will remain.
That's the name it will continue to trade under on the Toronto and New
York stock markets. The logo is changing for the fourth time since 1901, when the lion and
crown were first introduced. The new name and logo will be new to markets where the company has not
previously had a physical presence, said new bank president Gord
Nixon. "One of our key strategies is expansion into the U.S. and other niche
markets around the world," Nixon said. "We want to be able to use a common brand name and logo wherever we
operate in order to build awareness of our total business activities and
to leverage our brand's positive attributes with customers, employees and
investors globally." Bank customers won't notice the logo change immediately. Signage across
the country will be replaced in a phased rollout and full implemented by
2004. The brand-name change failed to impress Naseem Javed, president of ABC
Namebank International, which has come up with Telus, Celestica and other
corporate monickers. "RBC puts us back into the alphabet soup," said Javed, noting there are
similar initials for thousands of organizations around the world -
including Radio Bible Class. The lion logo, meanwhile, is taken from heraldry and reflects "old
imagery" that falls short of the mark as companies strive for
globalization, he said. Choosing an appropriate new name for a company is a sophisticated
process that takes time and thought. The RBC name may just be "an
experimental branding," Javed said hopefully. |
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