Brand strategy in the Swedish banking industry : A comparative study of Nordea and SEB

Abstract: A brand consists of more parts than the visible features such as names and logotypes. No matter in what industry a company is acting the brand in itself determines if the company will succeed or not. A successful brand is extremely hard to copy since two exactly similar brands do not exist. With a strong brand you create positive associations and form emotional relationships with customers. The purpose with this paper was to investigate how banks in the Swedish market explain their brand identity and how they use their brand identity when positioning themselves. Furthermore the authors have investigated the differences in that matter between two of the leading banks in Sweden. This was done through a comparative case study with Nordea and SEB who are two of the leading banks in the Swedish market. A qualitative method has been used to this thesis and in-depth interviews have been conducted to collect information that was suitable for our stated problem. The results showed that both Nordea and SEB explain their brand identity according to the different aspects that the theory states and they understand the importance of brand identity. When building brand identity it is important to be aware of the different parts that the brand identity consists of. Both banks try to develop the different parts of the brand identity but there are differences in the amount of resources they put in each part. When positioning themselves, both Nordea and SEB are answering the questions in the theory concerning positioning and positioning a brand. The theory implies that the core identities are the foundation when positioning and both Nordea and SEB are well aware of their core identities and they are using them when positioning their brand.