THE Royal Bank of Scotland is dropping the word ''Scotland'' from some of its branding after its chief executive said the country was associated with ''whisky, tartan, bagpipes, and golf''.
In an interview with an American financial magazine, Fred Goodwin said he wanted to catch the eye of non-British shareholders by renaming the bank ''RBS'' in some corporate advertising in the US. He told Bloomberg Money Markets magazine: ''People associate Scotland with whisky, tartan, bagpipes, and golf. People pigeonhole us, and that was pretty accurate up until a few years ago.''
New advertising campaigns in the US - where the Royal Bank, Scotland's biggest company, has a large following through its Citizens subsidiary - emphasise RBS more prominently than Royal Bank of Scotland.
Last month, the bank teamed up with Jack Nicklaus, the golfing legend, to launch Team RBS to raise its profile in the US. The company's RBS initials were also much in evidence during the RBS Six Nations rugby championship.
A bank spokeswoman insisted that there was no intention of dropping the name Royal Bank of Scotland, however. She said the full name was in small letters below RBS and the company's logo. She said: ''It is absolute nonsense that Scotland is being dropped. 'Royal Bank of Scotland' continues to feature prominently in our logo.
''The use of RBS at a group level has been introduced to differentiate between the retail banks and the group, and bringing us in to line with the stock exchange listing and the US's ticker tape system.''
The bank's decision to adopt its initials follows a corporate trend away from being called Scottish. In recent years Scottish Media Group became SMG and Scottish Radio Holdings, a regional radio business, refers to itself as SRH.
ScottishTelecom, owned by ScottishPower, also changed its name to Thus when it floated on the stock market in 1999.
In February, some Scottish life assurers, the bedrock of Scotland's financial sector, were reported to be starting to play down their roots in a bid to win more business.
One Scottish insurance exe-cutive was quoted: ''Scottish in the past has been sold to the consumer as denoting assiduous accumulators of wealth. There was a glow associated with investing with Scottish money managers. Now the customer may well see Scottish as meaning small-minded, governed differently, parochial, anti-English and losers. The brand is no longer associated with success.''
Scottish branding experts said they were disappointed by Mr Goodwin's comments. One said: ''I would have thought Fred was more cultured and sensible.''
However, they admitted that in other parts of the world, Scotland was best known for traditional fare such as tartan, whisky, and golf.
This image fits well with the folksy messages coming from America's Tartan Day celebrations last month.
George Russell, the former chief executive of Scotland the Brand, a body which markets the country overseas, said he had attended focus groups around the world where people had told him Scotland stood for tartan and shortbread.
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