Listening to Dutch Radio 1 this morning in my car I picked up the story that Fortis might be on its last legs as the bank's trade mark in the Netherlands. In Het Financieel Dagblad journalist Jorinde Schrijver reports today that the trade mark Fortis has fallen to pieces. Advertising guru Eugène Roorda (Roorda Reclamebureau) agrees with Meindert van den Heuvel (Young & Rubicam) that it will be very difficult for the Dutch state - who bought the Dutch operations of the Fortis bank as well as the ABN AMRO bank, which was sold last year to Fortis - to rescue the image of the trade mark. Both take the view that ABN AMRO has the best papers to be the sole trade mark to continue the operations. Roorda: 'Fortis is a compulsively and invented complex trade mark identity of Amev, the Direktbank, De Amersfoortse, Europeesche Verzekeringen and Stad Rotterdam Verzekeringen. It is an invented identity. It is clear from the swirling logo too: small cubes can not only easily connect to it, but fall down from it too. As if that was already calculated in the design phase.' The advantage of ABN AMRO as leading trade mark lies in what Roorda calls 'Hollandse glorie' (the pride of Holland): ABN AMRO brings in this feature for free, 'Just like the ANWB, KLM, the Hak jars and Verkade cookies.' This matches very well with what the public needs in this 'breezy, globalizing juncture. It is our oldest bank, one of the oldest in the world. It smells a bit like King Willem I and even Michiel de Ruyter.'