State-run banks in India have been working aggressively to revive their brand.

Major public sector banks, State Bank of India (SBI) and Punjab National Bank, including other like Andhra Bank, Central Bank and Union Bank of India increased their spending on advertisement during the last fiscal.

State Bank of India increased its advertisement expenditure by nearly 45 percent to Rs 251 crore over the previous year.

The advertisement expenditure of state-run bank, Union Bank of India stood at Rs 142 crore, which is almost three times that of previous fiscal. The bank also launched a new corporate logo.

Another PSB, Bank of Baroda, ran ‘Shukriya Sau Salon Kaa' campaign marking completion of its 100 years last fiscal. The bank also launched the ‘Baroda Next' to showcase its customer-oriented technology initiatives.

The private peers have however scaled down their retail operations and advertisement expenses. The collapse of banking giants in US tarnished the image of private banks and caused retail customers to park their funds with the public banks.

For instance, ICICI Banks, the largest private bank reduced its spending on advertisements to Rs 140 crore, which is one third of previous fiscal.

Vaibhav Agrawal, banking analyst, Angel Broking, said, "A lot of private sector banks were in cost control mode and were not keen to grow their balance sheet due to the uncertain economic environment."

However with economic revival, it is expected that private peers will gear up to compete with their public rivals.