NAB comes out fighting with marketing dig at ‘one-trick pony’ rivals
National Australia Bank (NAB) has come out fighting in its latest marketing push, taking aim at rivals for being “one trick ponies” with their home loans.
The combative stance in the new print and digital ads comes in the week that competition intensified over fixed rate mortgages, which were cut this week by Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Westpac. Clemenger BBDO Melbourne created the campaign.
The bank carried the message ‘More lowest all-round, Less one-trick pony’, in a dig at competitors who NAB claimed were making only “sporadic” changes, and comes after Commbank launched a substantial marketing drive with its own press campaign on Wednesday promising the “lowest five year fixed rate home loan in the market”.
General manager consumer marketing for NAB Kevin Ramsdale told Mumbrella the campaign will be in market “for a while”.
“Clemenger’s did a great job. We wanted to re-highlight that we have consistency in what we do verses some of the guys taking sporadic changes and trying to claim the higher ground. We are making a competitive statement.
“The mortgage market is a key market and there is a lot of competition around fixed rates. We thought it was important to get out there and restate our position and remind people what we have done around fixed rates,” he said.
“We have cut fixed rates three times this year and that was the essence of the one trick pony message. We are highlighting the fact that we are doing things systematically across the board and over a period of time. We have cut more than one rate and five of our fixed rates are under 5 per cent.”
Ramsdale insisted its marketing could afford to be bold “because we have a bold story and a track record”.
Ads will run in print, digital and NAB’s own channels “which are important given the amount of traffic we get to our website”, he said.
TV ads haven’t been ruled out.
“Given the market we work in and our range of products we are always on and ready to go,” Ramsdale added. “Competition is good for customers, and what’s good for customers is good for our business. We welcome competitive activity in the market and like to be competitive in our tone.
“It’s a super competitive market.”
Steve Jones
Possibly the worst ad I’ve ever seen on TV is the NAB ad for business banking with the tag line about the ship in the ocean or whatever it is. Poorly written, poorly acted and just plain infuriating. What’s with bad bank ads? ANZ mentalist campaign also comes to mind
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Isn’t this the same concept as Nissan’s recent TV ads for the Pulsar?
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So we get a press release every time NAB do an ad? Is that because they do so little these days?
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