NewUBS is banking on Annie Leibovitz for global brand overhaul

What will a celebrity portrait photographer bring to a 161-year-old Swiss bank undergoing a structural overhaul after being mired in scandal since the global financial crisis?

UBS, Switzerland's biggest lender, is banking on world-renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz in its first global brand relaunch campaign since 2009, in what marketing chief Johan Jervøe says is a bid to make its image more "human".

"Leibovitz has a natural talent for capturing people in her images, as evident from her portraits of celebrities," Jervøe, UBS's global group chief marketing officer, told the South China Morning Post. "We would like to make the bank's image more human-centric. It is one of the fundamental parts of our strategic transformation."

The image makeover is expected to polish the Zurich-based banking behemoth's reputation, which was battered by a succession of massive fines for employee misconduct such as foreign exchange rate manipulation.

The campaign is also considered part of a pipeline of changes led by group chief executive Sergio Ermotti as he seeks to stage a turnaround, including a shift of focus from investment banking to wealth management business.

But some branding experts expressed doubts about how high the "return on investment" from the multi-million-pound campaign would be.

"Leibovitz will doubtless do some great photos … but that will do little if anything for the bank's image if it isn't combined with a credible strategy about how it's going to clean up its act," said Patrick Barwise, a marketing professor at London Business School. "Otherwise, clients are unlikely to give UBS the benefit of the doubt."