UOB refreshes brand to signal its Purpose, reinforcing its long-term ASEAN strategy and commitment to the region
Unveils an integrated regional brand campaign to showcase the Bank’s transformation in the new banking era
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 6 October 2022 – UOB recently announced its brand refresh in line with its Purpose – Building the future of ASEAN: For the people and businesses within, and connecting with, ASEAN – a clear and bold statement reflecting the Bank’s long-term strategy and commitment to the region. As part of the brand revitalisation, UOB also unveiled its refreshed logo and seal mark, new apparel and an integrated regional brand campaign ‘Doing Right By You’ to showcase the Bank’s transformation to be future ready for its customers and its people in the new banking era.
The brand refresh is not just a re-branding exercise or a marketing campaign. It signals UOB’s strategic intent to intensify its focus and investment in the region to develop and help realise the potential of the people in ASEAN. It also reinforces UOB’s commitment to facilitate economic flows within and with ASEAN to support businesses across generations.
Mr Wee Ee Cheong, Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of UOB, said, “We have always believed in the potential of ASEAN, with its favourable demographics and resilient fundamentals. As ASEAN re-starts its engine of growth post-pandemic, it is timely for us to unveil our sharpened Purpose and brand refresh.
Today, we have the most extensive ASEAN footprint among the Singapore banks. By the time we celebrate our 100th year in 2035, we want to be the most preferred bank for both consumers and businesses across our key markets. A truly regional bank that helps our customers achieve their aspirations.”
Building the future of ASEAN
As a key component of the brand refresh, the Purpose statement underscores UOB’s promise to do right by its stakeholders, including customers, colleagues and the community. To deliver on its Purpose, the Bank will double down on three strategic areas – Connectivity, Personalisation and Sustainability.
- Connectivity calls out the core strengths of UOB – its unparalleled regional footprint and one-bank approach that help businesses to connect with and within ASEAN, opening doors to new opportunities of growth across ASEAN.
- Personalisation captures the Bank’s focus on customer-centricity and commitment to understand the unique needs of each individual customer, achieved through a combination of data and relationship-led insights. This enables the Bank to create solutions that are closely aligned to customer needs, in a manner that engages them and better anticipates their life goals.
- Sustainability reflects the Bank’s long-term approach to the future, specifically the importance of impactful and sustainable development across the region. It captures the Bank’s commitment to help businesses to advance responsibly and to positively impact the environment and foster social inclusiveness alongside economic progress.
UOB will also be rolling out an integrated regional brand campaign through a series of brand films and advertisements on TV, print, digital and out-of-home channels that include airports. The two key messages in the campaign – ‘You Are Unique’ and ‘One Bank for ASEAN’, articulate how we deliver on personalisation and connectivity respectively, to demonstrate our promise of doing “Right by You”. The regional brand campaign began on 15 September 2022 across seven markets namely Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Mainland China, Thailand and Vietnam. (See Appendix A and B for more details and visuals of the regional brand campaign)
Ms Ng Wei Wei, Chief Executive Officer, UOB Malaysia, said, “Our brand refresh and sharpened purpose to build the future of ASEAN, reaffirms our commitment to the country. With our deep roots and strong heritage in Malaysia, we have been supporting the country’s growth for over seven decades. This brand refresh reflects our progressive transformation, and is timely as we celebrate UOB Malaysia’s 71st anniversary and continue to invest in our footprint in the country though the acquisition of Citi’s consumer business. The acquisition is targeted to be completed within the fourth quarter this year.”
Appendix A: Energising our Brand for the Future – Our refreshed UOB Corporate Identity Key Highlights:
The UOB Logo
The UOB logo is made up of the UOB letters, preceded by the five-bar gate brand mark which is derived from the traditional Chinese ‘five-bar gate’ system of counting – A mark of trust and unity.
With the sharpened UOB Purpose, the primary colour palette featured in the logo has been refreshed to reflect the Bank’s progressiveness. Defined as Sure Blue and ASEAN Red, the brighter primary blue and red colour palette talks to UOB’s Asian heritage and Southeast Asian roots, and signifies confidence and optimism. It also amplifies the Bank’s ambition to build a brighter future for this region.
The UOB Seal Mark
The UOB Seal Mark is a signature brand mark that represents UOB’s strong Asian heritage. It is a contemporary interpretation of a traditional seal design with modern-day Chinese characters.
With its unique style and presence, the UOB Seal Mark complements the UOB logo and enhances our Corporate Identity across communication materials and corporate stationery. The four Chinese characters (大华银行) in the Seal Mark represents the Bank’s name expressed in Simplified Chinese.
Appendix B: Integrated Regional Brand Campaign – Doing Right By You
The integrated regional brand campaign focuses on showcasing the Bank’s sharpened Purpose and reinforces our Brand Promise of ‘Right By You’. It is brought to life across its key strategic themes of Personalisation and Connectivity.
The campaign includes a series of Brand films and advertisements on TV, Print, Out-of-Home, Digital, Social Media, Airport and Inflight media as well as regional media broadcast and publications.
The regional brand campaign will begin from 15 September 2022 across seven markets namely Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Mainland China.
Doing Right By You - Personalisation themed: You Are Unique
To view the brand films: Biker | Swing | Preschool | Rain (30 sec each)
‘You Are Unique’ highlights our belief that everyone is unique – It is what drives us to do Right By You. We do this by designing personalised solutions using AI-driven insights, providing advisory that looks closely at all that matters to you and serving you both digitally and in person, because we believe in long standing human relationships.
The ‘You Are Unique’ campaign is made up of four short films that highlight different scenes in which a protagonist has a distinctive way of doing things, which is what makes them unique.
Doing Right By You - Connectivity themed: One Bank for ASEAN
One Bank for ASEAN (60 sec)
‘One Bank for ASEAN’ demonstrates our understanding that for business, connections are the pathway to growth. That is why we built a comprehensive regional network that enables doing business with, and within ASEAN. Serving through a One Bank approach, with expertise and coverage for the region is how we do Right By You and your business.
