ING - The Orange Cafe

Close to the Magnificent Mile in the heart of downtown Chicago you might notice this bold new store. You could be forgiven for a moment for thinking that it must be one of those new fresh juice bars but no, believe it or not this is the new ING bank cafe.

Firstly the designers have used the ING orange very effectively on both the exterior and interior, the store is immediately noticeable. Once inside you might think you are in a trendy coffee shop on the West Coast. The teller line is gone and has been replaced with a coffee and juice bar, and the furniture looks like it is straight out of a show room,

The employees are not tellers but instead servers that will take your order for a coffee and if you are hungry will whip up some light food from the menu. I must say that it all tasted rather good.

Installed on the walls are plasma screens displaying a mix of CNN, and custom developed ING content. The ING branded content looked a little simplistic, some basic ING product information and stock market feeds.

After getting my coffee and a cake, I sat down at one of the complimentary internet terminals and browsed the ING homepage. After a short while I navigated to both Bank of America and Wachovia websites where I was able to login to my online banking accounts.

Also on show were leaflets that contained ING product information and even those seemed more interesting than usual. If I felt so inclined I could have brought home ING branded pens, cups and shirts for a small price.

This is a great example of how a bank can brand themselves as progressive, and yes maybe even cool.....