In case you haven’t noticed, CommBank is starting to nail its digital marketing
I’ve been impressed with Commonwealth Bank’s gradual efforts over the last year or more to ramp up its digital marketing.
Little wonder the company appears several times on the AIMIA Awards shortlist which ses the winners announced in Melbourne on Friday night.
But CommBank’s digital work, mostly carried out by The White Agency, is starting to go way beyond banner ads and websites.
Last year saw Y Money Matters which was an effort to connect to Gen Y in person and online.
And I’ve come across a great video which has been created for CommBank looking at how its consumers may use technology in the near future. It was uploaded to YouTube more than a month ago where it’s gained a few thousand views, but I reckon deserves more attention than that.
Rather than making a huge hoop-la about its digital marketing, CommBank appears to be quietly upping its game, and developing more sophisitcated content-creation strategies. Without many people noticing, CommBank is becoming rather a good case study.
Tim Burrowes
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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I have to agree. I’m loathe to praise a bank, but their digital and mobile services are real quality. I just wish they’d spend more of my money on services/innovations that actually improve my experiences, rather than funding stupid ads. You can’t brainwash me into thinking you’re not evil. Actions change perceptions – not picking fun of Americans.
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The American-bashing TVC’s are actually created by American advertising agency, Goodby-Silverstein (San Francisco).
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Are future people still going to have those stupid bluetooth headsets?
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Setting aside my obvious vested interest in Tim’s piece (I’m the CEO of the AIMIA he mentions), I’ve long thought the banks to be genuine pioneers in digital. The first online banking system here in Australia was launched by Advance Bank in 1996 and in 96-97 a lot of the early banner campaigns in Oz were by financial institutions, notably Citibank from memory. Skip forward a few years to about 2001 and the finance sector (AMP in particular) were into search marketing and SEO in a big way, before Google had even opened their first office here. Citibank also had a go at mobie banking about four years ago, before the advent of app-mania. CommBank speaks for itself.
Sure, they have their own motives for doing all this but the finance sector isn’t shy about being early adopters on the digital front, they just don’t seem to like making a lot of noise about it.
Cheers
JB
AIMIA
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“In case you haven’t noticed, CommBank is starting to nail its digital marketing”…oh the irony (well I thought so at least).
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Where do I get that Kitchen Bench
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Tim,
Firstly, I’d like to thank you for a good news story on the Commonwealth Bank’s digital marketing – it has been an internal focus of theirs, and its great to work with a client that has a real vision about where digital communications can go in Australia.
i would however like to point out that whilst The White Agency is doing a great job, and we commended them for their efforts, a large proportion of the work is also done by Goodby’s out of the US, and by ourselves at BMF.
Maybe it would be time to add that the bank has been vindicated for choosing the agencies they did?
Regards,
Fred Haas
Digital Creative Director, BMF
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Stuff the bank, I want the digital toys!
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Sorry, can anyone please tell me why this ad was produced? What am I supposed to be thinking/feeling? My initial reaction is disgust that the banking oligopoly generates so much profit that they can waste it on this sort of indulgence.
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This ad makes me angry.
As a CBA customer it was made with MY money – not marketing fluff that only a few 1000 people have seen.
I’d much rather they spent the funds actually staffing their branches and providing quality services. Sure, spend some cash promoting those services – not magical imaginary services of the future.
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I like it- and CBA’s online marketing for that matter. Call me biased, but I’m a customer, and the better marketing I see the more I’m glad to be with them.
And for the video- doesn’t it just make you excited about what the future of technology! I quite like it, and as a customer I feel safe that my bank is thinking that far ahead.
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“Shane” clearly works for CBA in some capacity. how dumb do you think we all are for goodness sake!
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The ‘Future Vision’ approach has been done extensively in the past – Microsoft a notable example & Telstra in it’s George St experience lab.
Here’s a few of them:
Microsoft Future Vision :
Banking – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNBJYH2jhko
Healthcare – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V35Kv6-ZNGA
Retail – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nvqVU1fBPI
An example that nails this future vision approach would be the Vodafone Future Vision, produced by North Kingdom in 2004.
http://www.northkingdom.com/ca.....re-vision/
Isn’t the tech across banks largely the same anyway? Not sure about relevance to the brand.
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These ‘Future Vision’ videos seemed to be made for the senior management more than anyone else.
As far as I can see the future belongs to those who can deal with the disruption new technology brings rather than those who fruitlessly try to predict it.
Oh and here is my favourite, nokia’s offering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0tEzVChiiE
Awesome! more headsets plus dorky AR glasses, can’t wait.
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a great ad, even if it’s been done a dozen different ways before — it looks far fetched but this tech is already available in some form, or as shown probably 5-10yrs.
it seems a bizarre twist, that if these people life their whole lives in a virtual on-screen world as suggested, why would they care for / want a quaint little old house with the white picket fence?!?
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it needs some spoken word over the top, without it somehow seems distant.?
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