Branding Strategies of European Retail Banks: A Linguistic Comparison Between Brand Names for Financial Products

Abstract

The aim of this exploratory research was to investigate the strategies European banks pursue in branding their financial products. For this purpose, we drew upon both onomastics, a sub-discipline of linguistics, and branding, and, hence, bridged the gap between linguistics and marketing. In particular, we selected a corpus of account names in Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Rumania, and Hungary for our qualitative analysis. The results reveal that in Germany, Austria, and France, parent brands (bank names) appear to be rarely used. In Italy some names seem to generate associations with slogans for fast-moving consumer goods. Whereas in Germany, Austria, Italy, and France, account names refer to different target groups, English elements appear to be employed to a lesser extent in France than in the other countries. Only German banks apply a co-branding strategy in cooperation with, especially, German sports clubs and teams. Generally, Rumanian and Hungarian account names show only few phonetic and graphic particularities. They seem to be rather descriptive and, hence, lack creative power. Our findings may help marketers in retail banking to create awareness of some linguistic features they may consider when branding their financial products.