Is Re-branding Worth the Effort and Cost?

Sometimes I have to wonder why people want to change a good thing. The change to “New Coke” is the classic example of an idea that went terribly wrong.

There are plenty of similar changes here in St. Louis and in West County that I have to wonder if they are such good ideas. Here are a few examples:

Hospitals: A few years ago Missouri Baptist Hospital decided it wanted to change its name to Missouri Baptist Medical Center. They thought the word hospital was too old-fashioned and didn’t explain all the doctors’ offices being built next to the hospital. They asked the city for a sign variance so they could have a bigger lighted sign on the side of the building that could be seen from the Interstate.

If I am on a highway trying to rush someone to an emergency room, I am thinking I need to find a HOSPITAL and not a medical center.

Now, St. John’s will always be St. John’s Mercy Hospital to many of us, but it has had a name change to first, St. John’s Medical Center and now, Mercy Hospital. For the next 10 years, if someone uses Mercy Hospital, I will have no idea what they are talking about.

In Chesterfield, St. Luke’s Hospital is calling itself what it has been known as for the last 145 years. In 1957 my grandmother was treated for leukemia and died at St. Luke’s when it was on Delmar. My mother was treated successfully for cancer at St. Luke’s in Chesterfield and lived to see her 90th birthday.

“St. Luke's Hospital has been our name since we cared for our first patient in 1866,” explained St. Luke’s Vice President Jan Hess. “Our name still best reflects the quality, comprehensive care the community has entrusted us to provide at our main campus. Patients can be assured that the same high quality standards apply to all of the more than 20 locations throughout St. Louis and St. Charles counties which also carry our name.”

BANKS:  When I returned to St. Louis from Washington, D.C. in 2006, I wanted to put my money in a local bank. I thought there was nothing more local Southwest Bank. It had been around since 1920. There was even a Hollywood movie shot on location in St. Louis at Southwest Bank starring Steve McQueen after a failed bank robbery. I opened an account and soon found out they had been bought by M&I Bank of Wisconsin back in 2002.

What I could not understand was why in 2010 M&I wanted to end 90 years of name recognition and brand loyalty by dropping the name Southwest altogether. A bank official said it was costing M&I $3 million a year to handle accounts under two different names.    

Now, M&I has been bought out by Bank of Montreal. So when I go to the bank, I try to use a few basic French phrases with the tellers. Voila!

I also opened an account with Lindell Bank and Trust Company. They opened their doors five years after Southwest Bank in 1925. Recently, they dropped “Trust Company” from their signs. But they are still a St. Louis-owned bank.

Gasoline: For the entire baseball season there has been no stranger sight than the Gulf Oil billboard on the right field wall at Busch Stadium. There hasn’t been a Gulf gas station in St. Louis since—who knows—1970? The closest Gulf to St. Louis is in Kentucky. 

Governments: A new slate of candidates took over the Normandy Fire Protection District. They promptly changed the name to the Northeast Fire Protection District with all the expense involved of changing decals on fire trucks, ambulances, badges, stationary and websites. Within a few years, all three of the new directors were gone and voters believed the district’s treasury had been looted.

In West County, even MoDOT is into branding. At their Traffic Management Center at Highways 141 and 40/64, logos on the walls and large TV monitors make the place look like the Johnson Space Center. The logos are not to inspire employees, but to be backdrops for news reporters doing live shots during storm coverage.

Back in 2007, Town and Country aldermen decided the logo of a fence on a rolling hill and firehouse needed to be updated. Without bids they gave $3,000 to a graphic designer who lived in town to come up with a new logo.  He presented six new logos and the aldermen hated each one and made no change.

Now Chesterfield aldermen are considering a logo change. City Administrator Michael Herring, who's been with the city since its incorporation in 1988, isn't keen on changing it—perhaps knowing the work and money it entails? Also, he said he likes the existing logo.

School Districts:  Now four years later in the middle of a recession the Parkway School District has decided to change its logo.  Like Town and Country they spent $3,000.  I know that $3,000 is not much in the big scheme of things when you are running a huge school district, but when property values are dropping and school districts are asking for tax hikes, saving nickels, dimes and $3,000 might look good to the taxpayers.

I have to wonder whether the folks get it—those who decided Parkway needed a new logo in the middle of an economic recession?