Bordier sings the Blues
WGR Lausanne launches an image campaign for the Geneva-based private bank founded in 1844
WGR Lausanne launches an image campaign for the Geneva-based private bank founded in 1844By Anita Vaucher After 158 years of successful business, it's not every day that a private bank gives up its pupa and launches an image campaign, even in Switzerland. Bank Bordier & Cie. recommends that sour-faced, three-eyed - probably wealthy - people move their portfolios.
New clients no longer have to suffer from "bank pain?" at the secretive bankers in Geneva, Berne and Zurich - should they decide to invest their assets with Bordier & Cie. The bank claims to have maintained a human scale with around 100 employees. And that the direct contact between client and banker allows for a privileged relationship.
Sapperlot! These are new sounds and images in banking advertising: while industry managers, captains of finance and insurance sharks are behaving like greedy canucks and even top-serious cantonal banks such as BCV in Vaud are provoking negative headlines, Bordier is promoting trust and customer proximity with a rather eye-catching image campaign.
After all, the images of wealthy people suffering from a communication disorder with their investment advisor do indeed contrast with the put-on smiles of other models who want to have their dream relationship with the bank installed. In other words, the timing for the Bordier & Cie. campaign developed by Lausanne-based communications agency WGR could not have been better.
The agency, which has been advising the financial institution on communication issues for over four years, has so far worked for its client in the background, including on the redesign of the somewhat outdated company brochure. In addition, the advertisers have occasionally placed advertisements in program brochures for events that the bankers have sponsored.
In Geneva, Mr. Bordier also answers the phone sometimes
Bordier & Cie., with headquarters in Geneva and branches in Berne and Zurich, positions itself as a solid family business. It is now managed by the fifth generation of the Bordier family. The company is one of the few truly private banks still specializing in asset management for private clients - the noble bankers do not accept money from institutional investors, at least that is the philosophy of the company, as a glance at the homepage reveals.
And if a client asks for Monsieur le directeur Bordier personally on the phone, he is promptly put through to him, says Jean-David Gyger from WGR, describing the much-cited client proximity. In contrast, he can hardly imagine that Oswald Grübel or John Mack at Credit Suisse would be so easy to reach for the man in the street, Gyger continues jokingly.
In its advertisements, which are placed in Le Temps, Agéfi, NZZ and Der Bund, the bank reminds people that it is time to change and recommends itself as an "alternative to unrest" because it offers "stable long-term solutions" with its 150-year tradition. In other words: no risk business is conducted with customers' money.
Campaign is not a consequence of branch expansion
WGR consultant Gyger denies to WerbeWoche that Bordier & Cie.'s image campaign correlates with the recent expansion of its acquisition boundaries for private investors. In fact, the bankers only ventured out of French-speaking Switzerland across the Saane at the end of the 1990s and are now also represented in the Principality of Monaco as well as in London and New York. They also offer a global macroeconomic overview every Monday via a newsletter on their website www.bor dier.com.
New clients no longer have to suffer from "bank pain?" at the secretive bankers in Geneva, Berne and Zurich - should they decide to invest their assets with Bordier & Cie. The bank claims to have maintained a human scale with around 100 employees. And that the direct contact between client and banker allows for a privileged relationship.
Sapperlot! These are new sounds and images in banking advertising: while industry managers, captains of finance and insurance sharks are behaving like greedy canucks and even top-serious cantonal banks such as BCV in Vaud are provoking negative headlines, Bordier is promoting trust and customer proximity with a rather eye-catching image campaign.
After all, the images of wealthy people suffering from a communication disorder with their investment advisor do indeed contrast with the put-on smiles of other models who want to have their dream relationship with the bank installed. In other words, the timing for the Bordier & Cie. campaign developed by Lausanne-based communications agency WGR could not have been better.
The agency, which has been advising the financial institution on communication issues for over four years, has so far worked for its client in the background, including on the redesign of the somewhat outdated company brochure. In addition, the advertisers have occasionally placed advertisements in program brochures for events that the bankers have sponsored.
In Geneva, Mr. Bordier also answers the phone sometimes
Bordier & Cie., with headquarters in Geneva and branches in Berne and Zurich, positions itself as a solid family business. It is now managed by the fifth generation of the Bordier family. The company is one of the few truly private banks still specializing in asset management for private clients - the noble bankers do not accept money from institutional investors, at least that is the philosophy of the company, as a glance at the homepage reveals.
And if a client asks for Monsieur le directeur Bordier personally on the phone, he is promptly put through to him, says Jean-David Gyger from WGR, describing the much-cited client proximity. In contrast, he can hardly imagine that Oswald Grübel or John Mack at Credit Suisse would be so easy to reach for the man in the street, Gyger continues jokingly.
In its advertisements, which are placed in Le Temps, Agéfi, NZZ and Der Bund, the bank reminds people that it is time to change and recommends itself as an "alternative to unrest" because it offers "stable long-term solutions" with its 150-year tradition. In other words: no risk business is conducted with customers' money.
Campaign is not a consequence of branch expansion
WGR consultant Gyger denies to WerbeWoche that Bordier & Cie.'s image campaign correlates with the recent expansion of its acquisition boundaries for private investors. In fact, the bankers only ventured out of French-speaking Switzerland across the Saane at the end of the 1990s and are now also represented in the Principality of Monaco as well as in London and New York. They also offer a global macroeconomic overview every Monday via a newsletter on their website www.bor dier.com.
