BBVA ranked among the most outstanding international banking brands

BBVA continues to climb positions in the international rankings. The Group was ranked 22nd in the 'Top 500 Banking Brands 2018' just published by The Banker magazine and the Brand Finance consultancy.  BBVA rose eight positions over the previous year, the largest jump for any bank on the Top 25 list. The Group was also among the top 20 climbers by percentage brand value increase, with a 42% rise.

For Rob Brown, Global Head of Marketing, Design and Responsible Business at BBVA and responsible for BBVA’s Brand, "this is a significant recognition of the work everyone in the organization has been involved in for a number of years now, which has seen us work hard to put customers at the heart of everything we do. We now use this driver as a guide for how we design products and services to the ways in which we deliver them. And ultimately we want to ensure our customers and clients can access these new transformative products and services in the ways that suit them best.”

BBVA carried out a significant brand identity change at the beginning of 2017, with a new purpose and slogan ("Creating opportunities"), which represented a key turning point for the Group in terms of communicating the user the bank’s transformation through all contact points. "We wanted to improve our value proposition and be able to transmit this new era of opportunities to our customers as well as our associates and employees", Brown explains.

The new slogan was created to communicate BBVA’s corporate purpose ('Bringing the age of opportunity to everyone”), which refers to the facilitating role of the bank to offer its customers the best banking solutions, helping them to make the best financial decisions possible and positively impacting their lives. In this sense, Brown highlights the customers’ role (their feedback and their information managed by BBVA) in the development and construction of a solid brand that is part of their lives.

Indeed, BBVA went far beyond the image and also updated its sound DNA, creating a new identity through the song 'How we dream' by the Mallorca-based band Maico. In Brown's own words, "in the process of developing our sound DNA, we wanted to live up to our new purpose by creating an opportunity for a young virtually unknown band to record the song for us. The song is now part of our ad campaigns, our corporate videos and the band has played several live concerts for our employees. They’re a great group of guys who went from playing small venues to recently playing in front of 15,000 people in Madrid.”

For Brown, the results of the new brand identity are already tangible, as shown by the various BBVA campaigns in the countries in which it operates, which confirm a better brand awareness and positioning.

In June 2017 BBVA was recognized by Forrester as the best mobile banking application in the world, and more recently, as the best online banking service in Europe.