WMH unifies identity for Barclays

Barclays Group has this week appointed Williams Murray Hamm to ‘evolve’ its identity, created by the then Interbrand Newell & Sorrell four years ago, as the bank looks forward to a period of growth.

The updated identity, launching in the new year, will initially roll out across advertising and collateral and will eventually be applied to retail, the bank’s website and print materials, according to Barclays Group brand strategy director Sara Deeks.

She says the identity work is part of Barclays’ ongoing efforts to ‘create a unified voice and cohesive look and feel for the group. We don’t have consistency across the brand, [and] if we want to grow, we have to make sure we do.’

She says Interbrand has done an ‘excellent job over the past few years’, but Barclays’ ‘requirements are different now’, and the group’s efforts in a ‘straight competitive pitch’ were simply not ‘the best’.

WMH director Richard Murray, who is leading the project, says, ‘Barclays has done some interesting things with advertising recently. It sets [the] pace in a throwaway world of financial services retailing. It’s quite different, and we’d like to continue along those lines.’

WMH won the work, which Murray says is a ‘significant win’, in October, following an unpaid, four-way credentials pitch against Fitch London, Wolff Olins and Interbrand.

Industry sources had speculated that Interbrand would retain its grip on the bank’s brand guidelines (DW 30 October). Deeks says the group is still doing ‘bits and pieces across the organisation’.