Banking Minnow Expands Its Horizons
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday April 12, 2008
THE bank rural Australians have traditionally turned to for loans is embarking on an ambitious marketing campaign to target cashed-up metropolitan consumers in the growing online savings market.
New ads for the Dutch Rabobank's online banking service will carry a tongue-in-cheek message demonstrating the ease with which people can manage and grow their savings with the click of a mouse. The advertisements, which begin airing on TV tomorrow night, feature caricatures of wealthy people dealing with the judgment that society places on them just for enjoying simple, innocent pleasures - like collecting yachts. But Rabobank, the largest lender to farmers after National Australia Bank, is entering a market that is already hot and cares more about the top line savings rate than the brand of the bank offering it. It is the latest bank to move from traditional ads featuring smiling tellers and lofty claims of customer service in an attempt to stand out in a cluttered market. Late last year NAB's retail arm was relaunched as the bank that helps people chase their goals with an ad featuring a nerd climbing Everest. This year the Commonwealth Bank started airing ads with a sitcom-style storyline featuring an inept American ad agency. BankWest followed with bizarre ads starring kittens and a promise that its banking approach could make you happy. To get its message through the mass of ads by its larger rivals - the big four spent $102 million in advertising in the 11 months to January - Rabobank has to be quirky. Its media budget is between $5 million and $10 million, according to media buying sources, a fraction of that of the biggest spender, ANZ, at $35 million. Rabobank's sales and marketing manager, Jacqui Steiner, said bank ads were largely forgettable. "We are a new brand so we have to be different. We have to stand out and get through the clutter." After a "soft launch" last May, she said the bank had deposits in excess of $1 billion. "We feel it's the right time to widen the base and go to a wider audience." NAB's general manager of strategy and marketing, Howard Silby, said bank marketing was catching up with other categories. "Consumers have been exposed to great advertising in other categories, so bank ads have basically lost traction; they've lost the ability to cut through." Regardless of how much Rabobank tips into marketing or how catchy its ads are, the researcher East & Partners said the bank was a Johnny come lately. The principal analyst Paul Dowling said the battle for a share of the online saving account market had been raging since ING and BankWest pioneered it about four years ago. Since then the amount in such accounts has soared 65 per cent, to $70 billion, as other banks entered the fray. Deposit rates, rather than a bank's brand values, drove customer take-up, he said. "Frankly, $10 million in marketing supportis not going to shake up the market at all.It would have four or five years ago, butnot today."
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald
Share This