Investment banks take their branding very, very seriously. The agonizing over choice of name, fonts and colour schemes can be endless – and extremely costly.
So, for the former CSFB – which decided after many years to drop the First Boston moniker and rely solely on the name of the investment bank parent, Credit Suisse, the rebranding on January 16 was a very big deal.
But before the big day something went horribly wrong. Investment bankers returning to London’s Canary Wharf after the New Year found a surprising new tenant at the Swiss bank’s building on Cabot Square – something by the name of ‘redit uisse’.
For Credit Suisse’s neighbours – some of their biggest competitors – the idea that the capital letters had dropped off was a gift.
But their schadenfreude was short lived. The task of fitting the new sign had required a large crane that blocked off the road in Cabot Square – a key artery into Canary Wharf. It took rather longer than expected to put up the new letters, and it was for one night only that the bank became redit uisse.
The verdict of one bank staffer on the logistics experts dealing with the new sign’s installation: “Totally uisse-less.”