The Allfirst name will disappear this weekend as the bank's new owner, M&T Bank Corp., puts its logo on 161 Maryland branches and 100 branches out of state.
On Monday, Buffalo, N.Y.-based M&T will follow up with the launch of a $3.5 million marketing campaign, including a new slogan, that will run for six to eight weeks, the company said.
"This is the culmination of a whole series of conversion activities that have gone on over the last nine months," said Atwood "Woody" Collins III, president and chief operating officer of M&T's mid-Atlantic division.
M&T announced a deal to buy Allfirst in September and completed the purchase April 1. The deal with Allfirst parent Allied Irish Banks PLC of Dublin came seven months after it revealed that an Allfirst currency trader had amassed more than $691 million in losses, though bank officials said talks had started before the scandal broke.
The $3.1 billion acquisition made M&T the nation's 18th-largest bank, extending its reach to Northern Virginia and boosting its assets by more than 50 percent.
As a result, M&T is trying to think more like a financial institution with national prominence instead of the strong regional player it traditionally has been, bank executives and other experts have said.
In May, M&T purchased the naming rights for Ravens Stadium, a 15-year, $75 million deal that will create an estimated 350 million "impressions" - notices of the M&T brand name - every year.
M&T has converted Allfirst's 600 automated teller machines to the M&T name, the bank said. This weekend, M&T is replacing Allfirst signs and other lettering on 261 bank branches in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Washington and Virginia with the M&T name, Collins said.
M&T has shifted the headquarters of some of its businesses to Baltimore, reasoning that the former Allfirst counterparts were bigger or had stronger track records, according to Collins. Among those businesses: asset-based lending, investment banking and bond underwriting and international trade services, he said.
Some executives were transferred from Buffalo, and there will be additional hiring in these businesses, bank officials said.
William H. Mabee, senior vice president of retail marketing, said the bank decided to use the changeover as an opportunity to develop a new marketing slogan, creating it after sessions with focus groups of consumers, business clients and members from other potential customer groups. The new slogan, which will be featured in the ad campaign, is: "M&T Bank: Understanding What's Important."
"This is the most extensive branding campaign we've ever undertaken," Mabee said.
