Santander: A Global Brand Goes Domestic

After purchasing more than 700 U.S. bank branches in an acquisition, The Santander Group hired Adrenaline to support a massive rebranding of its new locations.

June 22, 2017: By Adrenaline

Translating a Successful Global Brand

The Santander Group is one of the largest banks in the world. After acquiring Sovereign Bank, the Spanish giant sought to introduce their brand to the U.S. market. With decades of financial experience converting legacy brands into new ones following mergers and acquisitions, Adrenaline helped support the massive $200 million rebranding effort of over 700 locations.

The Acquisition Transition

With minimal disruption to daily operations, Adrenaline quickly and strategically began the process of retrofitting the Sovereign-branded sites with Santander’s custom merchandising brand elements. Detailed site surveys and a benchmark-based branch health analysis then set the stage for transformation, enabling facilitation of future marketing, branding and renovation planning on a highly specific branch level.

From Prototype to Deployment

Adrenaline first translated branded componentry into engineered prototype models, after evaluating for form, fit and function. Following the approval of eight pilot sites, We created a production strategy to manufacture, kit, warehouse, transport and install for the others remaining in the network. Our three and four-man install teams performed work throughout the night to avoid operational disruption and completed 540 branches over a six-week period.

Amping Things Up

Given the scale of the Santander conversion, and the extent of the elements and partners involved, staying on time and budget was a challenge. However, Adrenaline’s proprietary asset management platform (AMP) allowed the Santander retail, logistics, and marketing teams to access information and track progress throughout the conversion. AMP has since become Santander’s go-to source for site and merchandising management.