David Parkin on building society rebrands, World Cup woes and sailing sins

ARE building society rebrands like buses? Nothing happens for ages and then two come along at the same time.

I see that coincidentally, both Yorkshire Building Society and Leeds Building Society have unveiled new logos. It probably made a lot of money for some some “creative” firms populated by earnest young designers – who profess to be individuals with their own ideas but all end up wearing the same uniform of beards, thick horn-rimmed glasses, jeans, shirts buttoned to the throat, hoodies and trainers and also share the same personality deficit too.

When I see groups of them gathering for coffee around our offices at the Round Foundry Media Centre I feel like a rebel wearing a suit and tie.

Anyway, mildly bitter tirade aside, both the new building society logos resemble coloured squares. It looks like someone has ripped off the side of a Rubik’s Cube and thrown it in the air.

I’m sure the marketing and branding wallahs at both mutuals will be able to appraise us of the benefits of such a rebrand. The firms in charge of changing their branch shop fronts (or fascias as they are now called) will be the big winners.

The rest of us will spend our time trying to work out whether these changes make a jot of difference.

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IT has been interesting to see news from two Yorkshire football clubs this week.

It was confirmed that One Direction pop star Louis Tomlinson and former Doncaster Rovers chairman John Ryan have completed their purchase of the League One club while Leeds United president Massimo Cellino announced the appointment of former Forest Green Rovers manager David Hockaday as the new coach of the Championship club.

So on the one hand you have Louis Tomlinson’s millions of fans and Twitter followers now tracking the fortunes of the club that plays in the third tier of English football while Leeds United supporters – and many of the media that report on the club – were logging into Wikipedia to glean more information about the low profile new man at the helm of the one-time Champion’s League contenders.

Tomlinson and Ryan bought the club from former owners Terry Bramall and Dick Watson. Whether the new owners can translate the social media following for their new asset to the turnstiles remains to be seen.

I bet both Terry and Dick got more headaches owning a football club than building up and running their Keepmoat construction business, which they sold for north of £800m.

A team from Yorkshire law firm Gordons including head of corporate James Fawcett, senior partner John Holden and solicitor Robert Farrell advised them on the deal.

Football stirs up emotions that business rarely does. Bramall and Watson got involved in their local club for the right reasons and now the new owners can have a go.

And I hope Terry and Dick can go back to enjoying the matches as fans, in a way that I’m sure owning the club prevents you doing.

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I’VE just spent a very enjoyable and relaxing week sailing in the Greek islands.

I’m happy to admit that my sailing experience is pretty limited and I was fortunate to be on board with four experienced guys with plenty of seafaring experience under their life belts.

When I admitted this limited sailing knowledge to a contact at a Yorkshire law firm yesterday she asked simply: “So were you the boat bitch then?”

Staggered by this dismissive comment, I argued – I felt very well – that the best thing I could do when we reached dry land was to head for the nearest taverna leaving the more experienced crew mates to tend to the practical job of sorting the sails, mooring the boat, cleaning it and launching the dinghy.

After the fourth day of doing this the language being directed my way by my sweating fellow crew members as I sipped a beer and nibbled on a plump olive was a lot stronger than the word bitch.

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WHILE sailing on the Aegean, what was the gadget needed most?

Mobile phone? No, I turned mostly to a World Cup wall chart sent out prior to the tournament by Leeds law firm Blacks.

When wifi was non-existent, the wall chart was there, allowing my ship mates and I to plan our viewing each evening.

Surrounding the fixture listings, the wall chart bears images of members of the Blacks team and their predictions of who will win the tournament.

They appear to be a shrewd bunch – only one picked England.

Former Bradford, Barnsley and Leeds striker John Hendrie, a consultant at the firm, raised a titter by picking Scotland – but

qualified that by saying that if not, he’ll go for Germany, which given the early tournament form, looks a good pick.

I’m reliably informed that several members of the Yorkshire finance and legal fraternity have even taken to reliving their childhood by acquiring Panini albums and engaging in frenzied trading of stickers of World Cup players with a zeal not seen since their last corporate finance deal.

Given last night’s result, perhaps we can now all just enjoy the football for the rest of the World Cup.

Have a great weekend.