NAB repositions saying life is about More than Money
Five years after throwing a hand grenade at its rivals with its award winning Break Up campaign, NAB is repositioning its messaging to focus firmly on consumers.
In its first major brand reset since it launched More Give, Less Take six years ago, the bank said it wanted to show how it was supporting customers in their lives, an attitude framed in the line “More than Money”
The campaign is the first articulation of the bank’s future direction under chief marketing officer Andrew Knott, who joined from McDonald’s last year. He told Mumbrella it is a platform the bank hopes will sustain its communications over the next “five to 10 years”.
The campaign launches with two TV ads featuring real NAB customers and centres on the emotional drivers that lead them to seek out bank services and the rational facts about money.
One features home movie footage of a young woman from the day of her birth through to her eighteenth birthday, while the second, aimed at small business owners, charts the course of a NAB business customer from his start up days through to taking his business international.
Knott said the campaign was about bringing to life the One NAB proposition of the bank, aiming to become the best financial institution in Australia and New Zealand and the renewed focus on customers.
“For us this is really an opportunity to really reset around what’s important, what we believe we’re best at out of the big four banks and say it in a way that is very believable for our customers,” Knott said.
“What are they trying to achieve, how are they feeling and what role do we play in their life?” Knott said.
“It was quite obvious to me that in an organisation that clearly puts the customers at the centre of what we do, and Andrew Thorburn when he came in as CEO, made it very clear that he was measuring customer advocacy as one of the crititcal success measures for the business as a whole.
It’s reflecting the role that the bank plays in their life more accurately.”
The More than Money approach will roll out through TV and will have a significant social and digital aspect, using platforms such as Twitter to highlight how money is just a conduit to the real things that matter to people, such as a home not a house, or a child spending their “life savings” on a treat.
“People don’t set out to have a million dollars in their bank account, they set out to be able to do the things they want to do,” Knott said.
“For me, what success (of this campaign) looks like is when our customers realise that we’re there to assist them, where they believe that we want to be as good with people as we are with money and they see that relationship as a positive one to continue to build.”
While NAB has been using a range of creative approaches through its agency, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne – most recently a campaign using archaeological digs to promote its retirement products – the new campaign marks a significant shift from the aggressive approach it was taking against rivals with The Breakup and More Give, Less Take.
He said by featuring real people and real customers, it was the best way to shift the focus from competitors to consumers.
“The guy fishing is a NAB customer, an agri-business customer and he does genuinely spend his weekends fishing to get away from the challenges of his daily life,” he said.
Likewise, he said that the decision to feature the young girl was aimed at trying to get the message to the difficult to reach millennials market.
While he would not say how long the campaign was slated to run he did say it would have a high profile.
“We are obviously investing very heavily in landing the new line because that sits above everything.
“It allows us to do two things, it allows us to get down into more specific product communication, but also to use an old expression, it’s campaignable- we believe this new brand expression has life.
The intention is for this to continuously evolve over the next five to ten years.”
The campaign features 182 different creative elements from TV and traditional media through to “very deep investment in all aspects of digital from display through to snackable content”.
It will also have more immersive content that people can engage with when they have more time such as when commuting on the train.
More important things than money is one of those old chestnuts that comes out of research. Sadly what people say at research and actually do/mean are two very different things.
On a side note I’m looking forward to NAB living their ‘brand promise” and stop charging me fees as there is much more important things than money and making a profit – apparently. However their dividend hungry shareholders may beg to differ.
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Not going down well with customers on Facebook….
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I know that Melbourne “creatives” are frequently out of touch with their victims.. I’ve just watched a really offensive advert..they have chosen an asian child to show just how cool they are etc. … but the advert tells us that we will spend $1,000’s on raising a child which will give us zero returns..WTF? … my children were worth every penny and your bank sounds like the mindless accountants on both sides of politics that think if the balance sheet is healthy then it doesn’t matter about the poor people who have to live in the battered and overtaxed society that you idiots have created.
The end result of this advert is that I now hate you more than any other bank.. which is a pretty impressive result after all the money you wasted on this advertising campaign..if banks spent more money on helping their customers and staying open at times when their customers could actually come and see them, we probably wouldn’t hate you so much and this would allow you to cut down on the expensive, massive and stupid advertising devised by total idiots to make us like you more (which could have more sensibly have been given back to your customers in higher interest rates for customers who bank with you..with fantastically better results.. instead of pissing your massive profits with snake oil salesman in Melbourne)
Australia isn’t a balance sheet…. its lots and lots of people trying to live their lives, be happy and achieve some of their dreams.. our governments and our banking systems are now operating on an entirely different operating system.. make money, store money.. bugger the people who are paying for all of it…Australians are a laid back and forgiving people.. but if you look back at history (as you should) I suspect there will be a time when Australia will have had enough of all you…and then its the end game (look this one up in history too).
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why did they do the sound record in the toilet?
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I was hoping to find out where the audio came from for their first ad they’ve aired today 10 July, with the home video footage of the little girl growing up. Can anyone advise?
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It’s ‘brand’ not ‘band’ in your first sentence. The proofreading at mumbrella is shocking.
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Thanks for flagging Oh come on.
It was in the second sentence though….
Cheers,
Alex – editor, Mumbrella
Having carved out a competitive point of difference for themselves with break up and all the great product work that followed, NAB has let it go to waste.
More than money is as generic as it comes. Sad. Shame on the NAB marketing team and shame on their agency.
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[Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy] Nab doesn’t care about the customer, just the $. Good to see Clems flex their creative muscle here. #nabbrandfail….again!
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I think a few touched on it here and if you read the hundreds of facebook posts, it’s not what the masses want from a bank. The marketing director and the agency missed the mark and managed to pull the wool over the exec sign off team. Agencies are too busy sucking up to keep accounts, but as we have seen in many campaigns they lack the talent to deliver and so full of their own self importance they can’t see how the outside world interacts with clients.
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The new ‘Mumbrella’ campaign is a total load of rubbish. Firstly using an Asian child to appeal to Australian customers is a total joke. We live in Australia not Asia and an Asian child does not represent the average Australian. The advertisement enrages me in the first 10 seconds. Secondly, does this new marketing director Andrew Knott really think customers are going to believe the message that the NAB is now putting people before money? What a joke. People are never a consideration when it comes to banks. If the NAB Board thinks Knott is clever, they’re on the wrong track.
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It’s a sad irony that NAB’s recent campaign shows little insight into their ambition for customer-centricity. It’s an average strategy, quite unoriginal, shows little awareness of customer demands and needs, and the execution is clumsy at best. NAB brand campaign? More like un-brand. How much money, time and effort did this cost to make and deliver? A real pity, it’s a missed opportunity.
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@Ferntree, for god shake, she’s Australian with Asian heritage. If different background is your issue, you shouldn’t let your children watch Playschool on the ABC because their presenters are from multicultural background other than your “average Australian”.
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What would you do if money were no object?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khOaAHK7efc
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Wow, what blatant racism.. Australians are a melting pot of ethnicities. The average Australian is not white with blonde hair, blue eyes, wearing board shorts and a singlet with a surfboard under their arm.
It’s not 1950 anymore, Ferntree.
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It’s pure Stilton and reeks of bullshit.
But then what banks ‘brand positioning’ isn’t just totally spinny hog wash?
Can?
We’re for the makers?
That ANZ guff with the finger print?
It’s all total nonsense. Banks make money, they don’t care about anything but that and that’s too ingrained in our social psyche to be changed by a fabricated message with ‘real nab customers’
Stop talking total wank and just do something with your product offering that makes banking easier, cheaper and better for us, that no other bank is doing.
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If I want money I go to the bank. If I want to talk about anything else that concerns my life, I go to anyone but the bank.
Why do they want to be part of my life when I can’t stand them? I just want them to make and save me money. Life is more about money, but banks are still all about money.
What they don’t get is that being customer focused simply means being in business. What have they been doing all these years if they started being customer focused first now? What changed? Oh, that’s right, a new marketing director.
A marketing director who admits they’re part of the big four. Do the other three know you’re back together?
For the spot (1 min of course, cause 30 sec isn’t enough to convey the enormous pathos) they’ve copied the superficial executional tricks of a few successful overseas ads. Too bad they didn’t copy some substance.
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Thank you NAB for pointing out that 50% of us will fail in starting a small business.
Stuck with a small business loan that we will need to still pay off.
or maybe if my business fails you will forget about the loan.
as life is more than money.
So you will understand, won’t you.
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YES I agree with you 100%. You would not find an Aussie in an Asian commercial.
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Ferntree you see an Asian child in the first 10 seconds and this enrages you because in your eyes they aren’t ‘the average Australian’ – you’re a disgrace…
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Life is about more than banks
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Isn’t ‘Can’ about making banking easier and better?
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Does anyone know the name of the person doing the voice over on the ‘More than Money’ commercials? I have a bet going with my wife on who it is.
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It’s a poor idea that’s poorly executed but I don’t think they were trying to say having kids is a bad investment. Hence the rather average tag line.
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The circle crowd ad with people clothed in different colours, looks like many scenes were lift from an american bank ad…with whooping yo momma and the like.
It doesnt feel like oz…or look like it…
But it that makes sense I guess because have no idea about customers…
They are just numbers to make a dollar from…
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