ING café

In the heart of downtown Chicago, ING Bank has a branch where coffee is king and there isn't a teller in sight...

Across the road from the Sofitel Hotel, the giant 'coffee shop' is hard to miss - it's decked out in the distinctive bright orange and blue of ING Bank's corporate colours and has about twice the footprint of a typical Starbucks in the surrounding neighbourhood, which is home to many middle and upper income earners dwelling in a fast-growing collection of high rise condominiums.

Customers buy their barista coffee at a counter like they would at any other coffee shop. It's served in bright orange takeaway cups - and if you're wearing orange on a Friday, it's free.

If you choose to 'drink-in' you can relax at a table with a newspaper or some ING Bank product information, or sit at an internet terminal and surf the web - once you've navigated away from the ING Bank home page of course. Large screen TVs broadcast CNBC news bulletins and sharemarket information inside a moving orange frame which offers some ING Bank news and the going interest rates.

There is ING Bank merchandise on display - ranging from golf balls and mugs, picnic baskets and baseball caps - and even an office shredder to get rid of all those annoying paper bank statements securely. All in orange, of course.

A flip menu board on the tables offers not an array of food choices, but some clever slogans to reinforce ING Bank's mantra. "Change begins in your pocket, Become a Saver" was a stand-out. Others included 'Write a cheque without lifting a pen'.

If you're hungry, you can augment the coffee with food. Our visit was around breakfast time and we selected a pre-mix yogurt and muesli parfait. It came with a slice of bright orange mandarin and a single blueberry on top - even the food comes in corporate colours! You might want to follow the coffee up with a mint - or in this cafe's case an "invest-mint".

And don't despair - if you're short of cash there may not be a teller on call - but there is an ATM in-store. An ING Bank one, of course.

As a branding exercise, ING Bank's Chicago cafe stands out. If the message is layered on a little too thick, the trowel of humour excuses it. It presents a myriad of complementary messages about the bank, its products and its corporate philosophy without any high pressure sales tactics from over-zealous sales people (a stark contrast to those pesky American Express salespeople in airports!).

By Robert Stockdill