CommBank introduces The Harringtons video series
Commonwealth Bank has launched an online video series featuring the adventures of Australian family The Harringtons.
The series centres around an intervention by the family’s CommBank financial planner.
Today saw CommBank upload four webisodes.
Nobody from CommBank was immediately available to discuss the agency behind The Harringtons. CommBank’s agencies include the US-based Goodby Silverstein, BMF and The White Agency.
Update: Dan Ilic was the director. Nobody was available for comment from CommBank’s digital agency The White Agency.
Update: Details from CommBank:
The Harringtons is an online marketing campaign which feeds out of the larger above the line campaign, ‘Life-changing financial advice, translated into simple conversation.’
The Harrington’s consists of 4 ‘webisodes’, following the humourous interactions of a Commonwealth Financial Planner, Andrew and an average Australian family, the Harringtons.
Each episode sees Andrew discussing the benefits of financial planning with the each member of the family, demonstrating the different ways a Commonwealth Financial Planner can help at different life stages.
This campaign supports the Bank’s underlying commitment to providing simple, easy to understand financial advice.
Objective
• Demonstrate to customers and non-customers alike, the value of advice with Commonwealth Financial Planning
Media
The campaign will be supported by advertising on:
• Youtube
• ninemsn
• commbank.com.au
• NetBank targeted marketing banners
The videos in full will be hosted both on the Commbank Youtube page as well as on the Harringtons microsite both of which will be live from 2 March 2011.
Client: Commonwealth Bank
Agency: The White Agency
Creative Director: Mike Barry
Writer: Mike Barry / Marcus Tesoreiro / Trent O’Donnell
Director: Dan Ilic
Agency Producer: Rhadi Bryant
Production company: Motion Picture Company
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Yet another in a long line of bank ads portraying its customers as ignorant morons. The narrative in these ads is that regular people are stereotypical figures of fun to be lampooned, whereas bank employees are the only intelligent professionals in shot. When will banks learn not to treat their customers like they’re idiots?
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Love them.
Refreshing work.
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It was ok until the sell
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Did the Harrington’s also get free cash from CBA ATMs yesterday?
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Was surprised to really enjoy them. Was expecting lameness. Puts an entertaining spin on a dull subject.
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I’m pretty over this “documentary” style. No one has pulled it off since The Office (UK version). Obviously went for a Modern Family angle here… unfortunately it’s just as unfunny…. plus it’s a bank ad. Double fail.
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I can image int advice from the Advisor… “find a CommBank ATM and your money will be doubled”
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Not too bad at all. A sign of things to come?
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Obnoxious, unrelatable characters…….what a waste of time
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Sorry, my attention span for online commercials is 10 seconds max.
If I had 3 – 5 minutes to spare I would be better off going to the Channel 10 website and watching Modern Family.
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I must send these on to my friends – they are hillarious. My firends will all laugh at these as well. Side splitting stuff.
Mind you, we all have aspergers.
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Shocking
I hate to think how much money they must have wasted on making the “average Jo” look ridiculous. I suppose they have to spend their annual profit of $6 billion somewhere…..
Do Commonwealth Bank really think people are this stupid?
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CommBank does Modern Family.
Just as unfunny too.
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Some good bits in here. Too long and some wooden dialog, but streets ahead of previous efforts.
Important lesson — just because the time is cheaper, doesn’t mean you should use more of it!
And of course, the snarks are smelling blood in the water….
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Actually, as much as it’s cringeworthy and borrows from the detestable Modern Family, I have to applaud the ability to get across very dry but important messaging in a relatively entertaining way.
For those who commented after the first video (like me)- they actually get better as they go along.
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Have none of you people seen Modern Family?!
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I liked it to begin with. But. Too long. Way too long. I watched the whole of the first one. The whole of it.
And since I’m unfortunately no where near retirement age I wont be tempted to watch any of the others. I felt like the rest of the family: this sort of bank advertising feels like an intrusion in daily life.
Now, imagine if Jean-Pierre Jeunet had directed these as 30 seconds spots….
And yet, I should be their target market, I’d have thought…
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That’s on the high end of ridiculous, I like the concept but the acting is so tacky and over exagerated! The Bonnie Doon Theatre Troupe could put on a more genuine performance!
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I actually like these.
In regards to Paul’s “Yet another in a long line of bank ads portraying its customers as ignorant morons.”
What sane person would actually take this as CBA’s point of view of their customer base. The whole thing is obviously tongue in cheek and even most morons should get that.
Hats off to the team that managed to make financial planning remotely bareable to learn about and get a banking client to buy into it.
I have no link to CBA in fact i work on a major competitor.
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#19: Ad after ad from all the banks creates the myth of the bank manager/consultant as the sea of sanity in a world of crazy customers. The only one that differed was the Barbara one which reversed it to show a competitor’s bank manager as insane, which I thought was just as bad in turning me off banks. How about a different approach: don’t make either party out to be loons, and instead show (or simulate) a real conversation where a bank actually helped a normal professional customer in a completely professional manner! Or don’t those exist in the real world?
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It’s banana smoothies all over again. When will banks realise their customers are financially astute?
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before they release any more.
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This shit doesn’t make me want to quit the business, it makes me want to cut myself with razor blades before having a bath in iodine. Not fucking funny one bit, just shit. In fact, I’d like to cut myself with razor blads, bath myself in iodine and have a leper shit in the bath for good measure while watching this ‘content’.
Reeks of lame.
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“…cut myself with razor blads, bath myself in iodine and have a leper shit in the bath for good measure while watching this ‘content’.”
Hahahahahahahhahahaha!
As a CBA customer, it’s very, very clear where all my mortgage fees and account fees are going: marketing.
And we all know what the smartest man in the world said about marketing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo
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Fantastic, Roger collects smells. What kind of smell do you think this whole thing would be, if Roger could stick it in a jar?
Here’s a clue, it starts with “S”, ends in “T” and says “HI” in the middle.
Got 4 minutes into the first ‘webisode’, (where ‘Roger’ revealed his smell fetish, luckily he was cut off before showing all of his wife’s old shoes and him sniffing them as well), before I’d had enough. What was the message trying to get across? All I learnt is that I can invite a Comm Bank financial adviser to my next BBQ.
Dont try to entertain me (especially if you are going to fail this badly), tell me your MESSAGE!!!! I’ll watch TV shows for entertainment, and adverts (or webisodes) for product information…
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This is funny stuff and quite frankly much better than most of the sitcoms on TV. Also for the first time I have an understanding of what a financial planner might do for people younger than retirement age. The acting is great, (don’t let the Bonnie Doon Theatre Troop anywhere near it) – they understood the style and nailed it.
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