Bank of America, overall leader in small business administration (SBA) lenders in the US, with clients in

175 countries and associated with 98 percent of the US Fortune 500 companies, announced 'Bank of
Opportunity' - a new brand positioning theme supported by many initiatives like mix of national and local
television, radio, print, on-line and outdoor advertising, as well as major charitable grants. The case
details Bank of America's initiatives and ends on the debate around whether Bank of America would be
able to communicate effectively the underlying theme of 'Bank of Opportunity'? Would this brand
positioning campaign really take off? The case aims to understand the brand building exercise
undertaken by Bank of America. It also aims to discuss the concepts of: (1) branding; (2) creation of
brand; (3) types of branding; (4) communication barriers; (5) different media used in communication; and
(6) their reach and impact on the target segment. A structured assignment '507-154-4' is available to
accompany this case.

1.Bank of America has a strong brand name and good financial position
2.Bank of America is one of the largest bank in the American market
3.Stable and growing banking sector in US
4.Excellent service and product innovation providedby Bank of America to its customers
5.Over 285,000 employee across the world
6.Bank of America serves clients in more than 150 countries and has a relationship with 99% of the U.S fortune 500
companies

1.Consumer credit controversies affected the brand

image
2.Wikileaks controversy hurt the business operations
Weaknesses of Bank of America

1.Expansion in other countries can be a huge

opportunity for Bank of America
2.Diversifying portfolios for customers
3.Growing credit card value for the consumers
Opportunities 4.Mergers acquisiitions and JVs

1.Changing govt regulations and financial crisis like

recessions
2.Competition from other banks can reduce Bank of
Threats America's market share

Bank of America
Parent Company Bank of America Corporation

Category Banking

Sector Financial Institutions

Tagline/ Slogan Bank of Opportunity

Bank of America Corporation is an American global financial services company,

USP the largest bank holding company in the United States

Bank of America STP

Segment Enterprise and Individuals who are seeking financial help and advice

Target Group Large enteprises and rich individual investors

Positioning A bank which provides an opportunity to all its customers

THE PROBLEM

Innovation in services is rare. In financial services, the last big breakthrough

was online banking, nearly a decade ago. In October, 2005, Bank of America
(BAC ) brought out a radically different product that broke the paradigm. It's
called Keep the Change.

The concept solves a critical banking problem -- how to get consumers to open
new accounts. The product works like this: Every time you buy something with
a BofA Visa debit card, the bank rounds up your purchase to the nearest dollar
and transfers the difference from your checking into your savings account. It
also matches 100% of transfers for the first three months, and 5% of the
annual total, up to $250 a year. Since the launch, 2.5 million customers have
signed up for Keep the Change. Over 700,000 have opened new checking
accounts and 1 million have signed on for new savings accounts.
THE RESEARCH

How did Bank of America create Keep the Change? In the spring of 2004, it
hired an innovation and design research firm in Palo Alto, Calif., to help
conceive of and conduct ethnographic research on boomer-age women with
children. The goal was to discover how to get this consumer segment to open
new checking and savings accounts.

For the next two months, a team of five BofA researchers and four researchers
from a West Coast consulting firm visited Atlanta, Baltimore, and San
Francisco. They observed a dozen families and interviewed people on the
streets. They watched people at home as they paid and balanced their
checkbooks. They tagged along with mothers as they shopped at Costco, dined
at Johnny Rockets, and made deposits in drive-through tellers.

Ray Chinn, senior V.P. for new product introduction, along with Faith Tucker,
another BofA senior V.P., saw two themes emerge from the research. In
Atlanta, the team met a mother who always rounded up her checkbook entries
to an even dollar because it was quicker. People also rounded up their
financial transactions because it was more convenient. The second realization:
Many boomer women with children couldn't save. For some, it was a lack of
money. For others, it was a matter of not being able to control their impulse
buying.

PROTOTYPING

In the summer of 2004, Chinn and Tucker put together a team of product
managers, finance experts, software engineers, and operations gurus and held
20 brainstorming sessions. The team generated 80 product concepts, boiled
them down to 12, and overwhelmingly favored one: rounding up the financial
transactions of consumers and transferring the difference to their savings.

The team created a Web-based cartoon that showed a woman buying a cup of
coffee in a store for $1.50. Then it displayed the rounding up and putting the
50 cents into a savings account. Tucker and Chinn tested out the cartoon and
concept in an online survey of 1,600 consumers. The result? Sky-high scores
on uniqueness. In December, 2004, Diane Morais, Chinn's and Tucker's boss,
pitched the idea to the bank's consumer division and got the green light. The
first challenge was a name. A woman in a focus group suggested Keep the
Change. That stuck.

Three features were added to the original concept: (1) a summary of the
rounded-up transactions in a consumer's checking and saving accounts, (2) a
fail-safe feature that automatically prevented a transfer from pushing a
customer's account into overdraft, and (3) a promotion to match the rounded-
up transfers to savings up to $250 a year.

MARKETING

The next challenge was selling Keep the Change to the public. The team
stumbled upon an approach in another focus group when someone suggested
getting people to dig for change among the cushions of a couch. The bank
tweaked the idea by creating a custom-made 20-foot-long red-velvet
monstrosity that would really grab eyeballs.

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To launch the product on Oct. 5, the bank staged a marketing event-cum-press

conference in New York's Grand Central Terminal. The staff lugged the mega-
couch into the station, stuffed it with coins and invited people to look for
change. The bank sent replicas of the sofa to malls in Boston, Dallas, Los
Angeles, and Miami and co-sponsored events with the National Football
League. Wives of NFL players and retired gridiron stars such as Ed "Too Tall"
Jones were hired to show up at malls and dig for change. Proceeds were
donated to charity. Bank of America ran TV commercials for the program
during the winter Olympics. The bank continues to promote Keep the Change
on its Web site, and it has bought ads with search engines. To date, BofA says
99% of the people who signed up for Keep The Change have stayed with it.
Bank of America
Tries Humble
Approach in New
Campaign
New Brand Positioning to Break During NCAA Games This Weekend

By Rupal Parekh. Published on April 05, 2013.

It's been a year since Bank of America CMO Anne Finucane spearheaded a
shakeup in the company's agency relationships and now the bank is unveiling the
result: a new, more humble brand positioning.

Although WPP was named the bank's agency of record last May, the creative for
the campaign -- which breaks via a series of TV ads this weekend during the
NCAA Championship -- was done by Interpublic Group of Cos.' Hill Holliday.
Going forward Boston-based Hill Holliday is serving as lead creative agency,
while WPP shops will execute the work in global markets and handle CRM and
direct mail among other things. Publicis Groupe's Starcom has remained the
media agency of record.

Meredith Verdone, Bank of America's head of brand marketing, said in an

interview that the new approach represents the bank trying to display some
"humility" for a change.

"We are a facilitator," she said. "It's not about us. We need to focus on customer
needs first and we know our place. We know we're not the center of your life, but
we will connect you to what it is."

This theme of connections forms the basis of the new campaign, which sheds the
"Bank of Opportunity" tag line created under BBDO and replaces it with "Life's
Better When We're Connected." In global markets, the tag line will be "The Power
of Global Connections," which will be utilized mostly for out-of-home and print.
In the spot "Portraits," overseen by Hill Holliday Chief Creative Officer Lance
Jensen, we see 1960s and 1970s era families in a variety of situations. There are
babies being born, arguing couples, new cars coming home, brushes with the law.
All along, photos are being taken of the families throughout the years. The
voiceover is done by actor Will Arnett, who drives home the message of Bank of
America being in the background, helping people in their day-to-day lives.

Of course, the notion of "connections" is something that is hardly specific to a

bank; Google or a major telecom could easily utilize a similar positioning. Asked
about why the idea would resonate with Bank of America customers, Ms. Verdone
said: "We need to make it ownable and prove that."
There's a suite of about eight different TV spots, and after those break during the
NCAA games, they will be supported by a digital advertising push, print ads in 16
markets, and some select outdoor.
In another spot, Bank of America emphasizes its institutional partnerships,
explaining that it helpedVolkswagen to open a new plant.

The launch of the consumer campaign coincides with a massive overhaul of Bank
of America's retail branches -- outfitting them with iPads and ATMs with
videoconferencing capabilities-- as well as improvements to the bank's website
and mobile offerings. Bank of America claims that it's seeing 50,000 downloads a
week of its mobile app.
Prior to external launch, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has spent
months speaking with employees about the importance of positioning the
company for future growth and leaving behind legacy issues. He's also
emphasized the need to make interactions easier and make relationships with
consumers feel more human. Bank of America has never spent so much time on
its internal messaging; the company feared that if it unveiled an ad campaign
wouldn't be successful if it wasn't embraced by employees.
The hope is that the new internal positioning will change Bank of America's
culture, while the advertising can change its reputation with consumers -- the
latter which has suffered over the past several years.
A Harris Interactive poll in 2012 said the bank's corporate reputation fell more
than any other U.S. company. It stated at the time: "The general public believes
that Bank of America has been more concerned with operational and financial
recovery than with customers and rates the bank low in levels of trust, ethics, and
customer service."
Ms. Verdone is optimistic. "I think they're going to look at the ads, and look at the
people in the ads and relate to them. I think they're going to see that we're
behaving differently and they'll see a more human company."