Customer perceptions for retail bank branding in Japan – an insight into a loss of opportunity situation

Branding in the banking industry faces constraints in that its services are intangible and it is its products and services are complex to understand. The level of branding that financial institutions employ hence lack the presence of strong brand culture, unlike product industries. A major shift in banking with digital platforms further emphasizes the need for strategic branding initiatives. Even as this need is emphasized there is yet a lack of research in understanding brand perception by consumers of financial services across varied contexts and markets. This paper explores the perception regarding bank branding from the customers in the empirical context of retail banks in Japan. Over the years, banking practices in Japan have seen varied changes even though the use of cash transactions continues to be most popular. However, this perspective is thinly explored in the extant literature and no paper specifically presented the results of customer perceptions regarding the branding of Japanese banks. Through a sample of 300 respondents and a structured questionnaire, this study explores customer perceptions of branding elements used by Japanese banks. Customer perceptions were studied for 2 aspects. The first aspect explored customer’s inclination towards banking institutions and their behavior around banking institutions. The second aspect explores brand salience and thus explores customers' perception regarding the branding elements used in the branding of retail banks, namely, name, logo, slogan, communication, and atmosphere. Results show that most brand elements, except brand name, had a poor recall. Other elements were not leveraged and hence accounted for lost opportunities in the strategic branding of banks