Building society drops Robin Hood from logo for ‘inclusivity’ reasons

https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/nottingham-building-society-drops-robin-9619851

Posted by Famous-Act4878

34 Comments

  1. > The Nottingham building society has dropped its iconic Robin Hood logo for “inclusivity” reasons. The Nottingham has rebranded itself as Nottingham Building Society, with a host of changes.

    I’m surprised a financial services organisation would use Robin Hood in the first place, didn’t he represent the opposite of what they do?

  2. I’ve read the article and still can’t understand the reasoning. Who was offended by the logo?

  3. Who was feeling attacked by the use of a character from folklore? Maybe Disney need to follow suit, Mickey Mouse isn’t very inclusive to us non mice folk.

  4. Training-Apple1547 on

    What is the “inclusivity” thinking? Who was Robin Hood excluding, other than the Sherriff?

  5. “A third added: “Go woke go broke I will be pulling my money out asap.” ” – there’s no way these are real quotes, come on.

    Article doesn’t really explain why the new is more inclusive than the old, which is a shame.

  6. evolveandprosper on

    If they want to be more representative of current UK society then they should adopt the Sherriff of Nottingham as their symbol.

  7. PrometheusIsFree on

    What’s next, Coventry Building Society dropping Lady Godiva, because animal rights campaigners and vegans don’t like her exploiting a horse?

  8. In short, they will have got a fancy PR company in who told them it was “old fashioned” and inexplicably limited their audience. They will have dropped it based on this guidance and no one in the company will really know why. No wants to ask in case they are seen as out of touch. Fast forward a few years and everyone will be putting these logos back on because ever brand looks the same generic modern style

    Rinse and repeat, all PR bs from consultants with the buzzword of the day thrown in

  9. SigmundRowsell on

    A naughty article. The rebrand as a whole emphasised inclusivity and other such things, not the logo change specifically

  10. There’s no way in hell people complained about this. Feels like they mentioned the “inclusivity” as a marketing strategy as they know more eyes will be on their company due to culture war BS.

  11. >“We’ve mixed our rich history with a modern twist. We want to reflect society as it is today. For us, that means championing inclusivity and **celebrating financial diversity**. Consider it a glow-up, but for a building society, changing to make sure we’re fresh and relevant for current and future members.

    They have paid money for consultants who have had to manufacture a reason for them to sound like the institution needed to change its image, they chucked in some vacuous buzzwords to a society that is getting very tired of the relentless changes for no reason and buzzwords and are now finding people unhappy with them.

    Obviously there is a small number of people who will defend it because it has “their team”s buzzwords like “diversity”. So notice no actual increase in diversity from this but people defending them. Gives you a clue how deep their politics actually is.

    Edited: And telling people you have to change an icon of the region for “diversity” is not a win for “diversity”, it makes people feel like their culture is being trashed for reasons no one will explain to them.

  12. Happytallperson on

    This headline does not match the story.

    They’ve rebranded and identified that their new brand includes a focus on financial inclusivity. 

    That does not mean they’ve dropped Robin Hood for not being inclusive. 

    It’s silly ragebait.

  13. It’s an internationally known symbol of a good person. What the Hell is wrong with it?

  14. ShroedingersMouse on

    because very few of the ‘poor’ can ever save so to represent its customer base better it will now have a logo of the sherrif sat atop a pile of investment properties

  15. The article is designed to get people red faced and angry about something so trivial, it’s a private company going through a rebrand, it happens all the time.

  16. They messed up a standing order I had with them which cost me loads. Stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. They don’t deserve Robin Hood.

  17. Genuinely baffling. The previous design looked old-fashioned but there wasn’t anything ‘non-inclusive’ about it. Of course, Robin Hood doesn’t represent the Britain of today but nor has he ever done throughout the history of Nottingham Building Society. I think the people in charge of this decision genuinely don’t understand the difference between the political content of diversity/inclusion and the arbitrary stylistic signifiers used to telegraph inclusive businesses (corporate Memphis etc).

  18. Square-Competition48 on

    Actual story for those who don’t want to read it:

    Building society undergoes total rebrand.

    Logo changes as part of this because of course it does.

    Document about rebrand includes the word “inclusivity” because of course it does.

    Newspaper connects these two things in pretty disingenuous way to get clicks.

  19. OwlCaptainCosmic on

    “Financial Diversity”. You mean rich people don’t like a figure that represents robbing the rich to give to the poor.

  20. KittensOnASegway on

    I simultaneously have no idea who would actually be that angry about a pretty boring rebrand and who had the bright idea that said rebrand would make a company more “inclusive”.

    It’s not like they were Robertson’s and had *those* dolls up there…

  21. Due_Cranberry_3137 on

    The organisation wants to better reflect society as it is today…
    That’s the thing with history, it does tend to represent the past.

  22. Vituperative_Camel on

    Robin Hood had nothing to do with Nottingham anyway, other than the baddie in the stories was based there.

  23. Brilliant-Dust8897 on

    Fucking twats jeezus how does Robin fucking hood alienate anyone. Maybe it’s the rich. Maybe they felt intimidated being reminded of such a heinous individual. Or perhaps it’s for everyone named John, king or otherwise. Or perhaps cos there is a ton of complete cunts in the marketing department trying to justify themselves. Who knows.

  24. Also cancelled bonfire night but can spend 700k for asylum seekers to get dentist and GP appointments.

  25. The following is a literal quote from their website:

    “We’ve mixed our rich history with a modern twist. We want to reflect society as it is today. For us, that means championing inclusivity and celebrating financial diversity. Consider it a glow-up, but for a building society, changing to make sure we’re fresh and relevant for current and future members.”

    This could have been AI generated. This wasn’t changed because anyone found the original logo offensive. They’ve just done a rebrand, tossed some corporate word salad on their website and now suddenly its a culture war issue. I mean honestly what the fuck does ‘celebrating financial diversity’ mean

  26. Ironically the word inclusive seems to have been deployed here to be divisive.

    I can’t see anyway in which Robin Hood is considered uninclusive, in modern terms he’s a social justice warrior. More so Robin Hood figures exist across many cultures around the world and is one that many can identify with. Complete corporate PR bolocks.