UBS BRAND CAPTURES OGILVY AWARD

Financial services giant UBS, which publicly launched its ambitious, multi-year rebranding initiative in 2004 with its "You and Us" advertising campaign, has been recognized for the research that guided the development of its brand strategy and its advertising with a prestigious David Ogilvy Award for Research Excellence.

In an April 19 award ceremony in New York City hosted by the Advertising Research Foundation, sponsor of the award, UBS captured the Winner's Trophy in the Services category, against Pfizer and East England Development Agency. UBS was cited for the depth and breadth of its research designed to help it overcome a variety of challenges to forging and communicating a relatively new global financial services brand - notably rapidly establishing its relevance to distinct customer segments in diverse regions of the world, and internally preparing employees to deliver on its marketing promises.

"The rebranding has been a very important strategy for us since 2001," said Oliver Loch, Global Head of Brand Research, of UBS in accepting the award. "The research gave us the kind of understanding required to develop a strategy that is relevant to our key stakeholders and to create the internal buy-in necessary to make this a success. Our "You and Us" ad campaign was a good outward representation of the insights from our efforts."

He acknowledged the importance of the team UBS brought together for this effort - which included Prophet, a consulting firm specializing in the integration of brand, marketing and business strategies; WirthlinWorldwide, an opinion research and consulting firm; and Publicis Advertising. "Prophet has been a key partner in guiding this effort. Their team worked side-by-side with us to frame up our key stakeholders' issues, understand the research findings, and develop and implement our global brand strategy," he said.

Added Jeff Smith, Associate Partner of Prophet: "The key to the success of this initiative has been the close collaboration between UBS and its partners in delivering fact-based recommendations driven from world-class research and analysis."

UBS is a leading financial firm, combining financial strength with a reputation for innovation and a global culture that embraces change. UBS is one of the world's largest wealth managers, a premier investment banking and securities firm, and one of the largest global asset managers. In Switzerland, UBS is a market leader in retail and commercial banking. Headquartered in Zurich and Basel, UBS employs around 67,000 people, and has operations in over 50 countries and in all major financial centers.

Prophet is a leading consultancy that helps clients achieve competitive advantage by creating and implementing integrated business, brand, and marketing strategies. Prophet works with companies from strategy to execution to develop, operationalize, grow, and protect one of their most valuable assets: their brand. Prophet has offices in Chicago, Hamburg, Houston, London, New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Zurich.

04/19/05

Contact:
Kellie Mullins
Hodge Communications
312.666.6662