ING Direct 2006 Annual Report Download - page 27

Awaiting F1 image photographed
by Marco Sweering (Photo has
been taken)
Brand awareness and the
understanding of ING’s brand
values continue to rise. ING is now
a truly global brand as measured by
Interbrand global 100, which ranks ING
85th among the top 100 worldwide
brands. Nevertheless, we aim to bring
brand awareness in line with ING’s
business profi le as the world’s 13th
largest company (Fortune 500, 2006)
with a client base of 60 million people
in over 50 countries. This is one of the
reasons why ING decided to make a
major investment in the ING brand
with the three year sponsorship of the
Renault Formula One (F1) team.
Brand is a competitive strength
As ING brand awareness rises, so too
does the brand expectations of customers
and other stakeholders. It is therefore
crucial that alongside increasing brand
awareness, performance of the businesses
against ING’s core brand attributes also
continues to improve. It is very important
that any gap which exists between brand
promises and the customer’s actual
experience is minimised.
Our brand
ING around the globe is
increasingly coming under
a single brand as major
streamlining work continues
and performance is tracked
against brand values.
ING’s fi rst global sponsorship deal formally
began in January 2007 with the unveiling of
the ING Renault F1 racing car in Amsterdam.
ING announced, in October 2006, it had secured
a three-year title sponsorship agreement with
the highly successful Renault F1 Team, beginning
in the 2007 race season. The sponsorship will
give ING year-long global exposure.
To this end, in 2006 branding was built into
ING’s formal planning cycle. The Executive
Board and each of the business lines fi rst
reviews its performance over the previous
year against the brand attributes and
then develops its own ‘customer-centric’
action plan, designed to adapt business
processes and practices to further improve
performance in the upcoming year. To
monitor progress, central tracking of the
performance of each business line against
core brand attributes has been introduced,
using independent market research.
Towards one brand
A process of streamlining the brand
architecture, so that all ING businesses
around the world increasingly come under
the single ING brand, has been underway
for some years. Marketing and advertising
campaigns will continue to be developed by
individual business lines at the local level. As
well, ING will commence rolling out a global
branding campaign, a fi rst for the company.
This streamlining process will also involve
business units adopting a more consistent
visual identity that shares the ING lion logo.
Furthermore, the objective of campaigns
is to not simply raise brand awareness,
but to increase people’s understanding
of what ING does and what the ING
brand stands for.
Formula One sponsorship: a key
brand building block
Extensive research showed F1 to be ING’s
best platform for a global brand campaign.
F1 has huge reach, with high quality, year-
long global viewing fi gures exceeding 850
million live viewers. Grand Prix races take
place in 17 countries, of which ING is active
in 15. The sponsorship will strengthen
ING’s presence in key markets, and help the
company reach new ones.
With the F1 campaign, ING is taking the
next step in developing its global brand.
The global F1 campaign is intended to be a
key element both in the process of bringing
ING increasingly under a single brand and
in the on-going effort to increase brand
awareness and understanding.
ING Group Annual Review 2006 25