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This rebranding was set in motion in 2009, when Fifth Third Bank sold a controlling interest in its Processing Solutions unit (a banking 'back room' operation, handling card and ATM transaction processing on a global basis) to Advent International, who are aggressive equity investors on a global scale. (At $2.35 billion, this was one of the largest private equity transactions completed in 2009.) 

In all but name, this was a spin-out. Obviously, its parental branding had become a net liability. Fifth Third is regional while Vantiv's prospective market is global (and includes banks competitive to Fifth Third). Perhaps more importantly, Vantiv operates in a dynamic, rapidly growing technology-driven sector (consider payment by smart phone) and needs a brand that supports a more dynamic culture than that of a bank. Finally, CEO Charles Drucker and his team were quietly working toward an IPO (as confirmed by July 12 Wall Street Journal reporting), for which a more forward-looking freestanding identity would be essential.

CEO Drucker's rebranding team found their way to the San Francisco office of Landor Associates, and to strategist Bob Kersten and creative director Chris Lehmann. According to Kersten, Landor recommended a positioning which would replace employees' "we've been spun away" dejection with a winner's attitude, active and progressive, distanced from financial services, closer to Silicon Valley than to banking. 

The subsequent naming process was then straightforward and led logically to the figurative coined word Vantiv...short, unique, with positive connotations ("advantage") and a marvelous symmetry of v's... and best of all, legally available.

With a sharp short name, who needs a symbol? Landor's early logo preference was for a wordmark, lower-casing the initial v to celebrate the v-v symmetry and to give the mark a pleasing boat shape. Symbol ideas, initial cap solutions and all-cap solutions were explored too, but the client readily accepted the case for a wordmark (bolstered by examples like Microsoft, 3M and in Vantiv's space, Bloomberg).

The case for a simple wordmark was also strengthened by Landor's recommended addition of a visual system featuring a "symbol stream" of icons (product, function or market-related), to be used alone or in dynamic random patterns, plus a rich color palette featuring yellow, purple and three shades of gray. The recommended corporate font is Foundry Context, which was also the basis of the redrawn wordmark (note shorter comb-over on the a, deleted serif on the t, and enlarged tilde on the i, which relates to the icon dot shapes). 

Thus Vantiv is yet another example in the trend toward visual identities shaped as much or more by secondary graphic devices than by the logos themselves.

Signature system: Mixed. While most operations will be Vantiv-branded, some will continue to be served with a Fifth Third face and newly acquired businesses may at first be verbally endorsed, "a Vantiv business."

A change of HQ location (vacating Fifth Third property for its own location, though still in Cincinnati) also has rebranding impact.  Launch planning was timed to coordinate with the move, and at Landor's suggestion, architectural elements were retrofitted to incorporate branding elements.

The new brand was launched first to 80 senior employees, in a half-day portion of  a management off-site (the room was re-dressed during a break); attendees, now Vantiv brand champions, then participated in a later all-employee launch event..    

Landor SF

Submitted by: Tony Spaeth, 28/07/2011
Status: Confirmed by Landor: Bob Kersten and Chris Lehmann, 22 July 2011
Category: Support Services
Country (HQ): United States