VMLY&R’s Paul Nagy on why consumers don’t care about emotional banking ads
Banks spend too much time trying to play on consumers’ emotions and pretending to be part of the family, instead of marketing to them about what they actually care about.
This is the perspective of VMLY&R’s chief creative officer Paul Nagy, who said banks are a necessary evil whose ad campaigns are often insincere and eye-roll inducing.
“You hate us, and yet we act like you are part of your family,” Nagy said on stage at Mumbrella’s Finance Marketing Summit.
“It’s all about ‘We’re saving you with helicopters, we care about your kids going through university, we’re a part of the family’…. Not only is that fundamentally not true, but if you said that to most Australians their eyes would roll back into their heads so far they would see their own spinal column, they just don’t believe it.”
Nagy speaking about Bankwest’s Bank Less campaign
Nagy, who works with client Bankwest, said the brand’s Bank Less platform was born from this idea, and the truth that Australians want to be less involved – not more involved – with their finance institutions. Subsequently, Bankwest and VLMY&R’s challenge was launching the platform in a genuine way in light of the Royal Commission.
“Banks are constantly overstating their role in people’s lives,” Nagy said. “What if we became the only bank that gives them what they really want? And we defined that as getting out of their way.
“People want to live, they don’t want to think about their bank. We’re a necessary evil.
“We want to play a better role in people’s lives by playing a smaller one,” Nagy explained.
Bankwest chief marketing officer Haylee Felton explained the first step was bringing every employee of Bankwest on board with the new mentality of Bank Less.
“It was really important that the brand had as much power internally as a rallying cry for employees, as it did as an articulation of what we were trying to achieve to our customers and our marketplace,” Felton said.
Felton also said the Royal Commission was a blessing in disguise for getting the company on board and pulling the campaign off.
“That was a blessing in disguise because we had the time and space to do that properly, so that by the time we did go to market with a bit more of a bang we not only had more support and comfort from our senior execs and leadership group, we had a frontline colleague team that were confident in explaining the platform and articulating what it meant to customers.”
Following the launch of the ‘Sea of Sameness’ campaign film, which was satirical take on the traditional banking ads, Nagy explained that every product or aspect of Bankwest’s business needed to fall under the Bank Less philosophy. The company even introduced a ‘jargon jar’ in its branches which helps its staff identify ways how they can communicate to customers in a clearer way, reducing the ‘Bank Stuff’ in the business.
For Nagy, the launch of the Halo Ring – a piece of wearable technology that allows customers to make transactions without the use of their card – in the early stages of the Bank Less campaign typifies Bankwest’s ambition to remove itself from its customers minds, and play a smaller role in their lives.
Felton and Nagy on stage at Mumbrella’s Finance Marketing Summit
“When we say we are just trying to get out of the road for our consumer, our consumer now can go for a run, they don’t have to have a little card with our logo on it, they can go for a run and buy a coffee and never ever think about Bankwest at all,” Nagy said.
“As much as possible we are trying not to be a marketing department, we are trying to make the heroes of Bankwest be either our frontline staff or our customers.”
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At last – someone who realises what the consumer really wants! I couldn’t agree more, enough of the nausea-inducing ads that the banks love to use. Stick to the facts and don’t try the heart-pulling stuff that we don’t buy from these institutions.
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the teams at Monkeys (NRMA) and DDB (Westpac) may have differing points of view. nice rhetoric from Paul and an obvious, but brave positioning for a tier 2 challenger brand, but lets judge by the actual effectiveness of the more emotional/humanity led campaigns that he is bagging out. agree about the role, but brands with genuine heritage shouldn’t ignore that as part of their brands story, if they can make it relevant of course.
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possibly the worst example of bank centricity was ANZ’s ‘We live in your world’, later changed to ‘Your world. Your way.’
Customers simply don’t like to be “we’d” on
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Maybe you should first be asking how effective these ads are before shooting down the strategy and approach…you may soon change your perspective.
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What mind-numbing garbage. Like the BankWest campaign is something to trumpet. And no commercial grounds to even vaguely suggest it has worked.
So, pick your (really poor) client strategy – shout that an entire industry has it wrong – and offer up a weaker strategy and execution as a solution. And make it clear to any CMO they probably should avoid your agency at all costs. Is probably why they could only win a tier 2 banking client.
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Always wanted to know the actual results from this. Was a good idea and good positioning to take (as well as bold). Can’t help but think there needs to be more work done product side to support it.
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For me this is one of those campaigns where the insight is broadly right – yes people don’t like banks, don’t like to think about them, and hate listening to their jargon – but the execution and timing is wrong.
Everyone was waiting for banks following the royal commission to come out and say, ‘we aren’t like other banks’, ‘we’ve changed’, ‘it’s about you’ etc. which is why I think the timing of this is wrong (even if the insight is broadly right), because instead of people going, oh BankWest is different, they (sample size of 1 admittedly) go ‘oh look a bank pretending that within 3 months they’ve somehow changed their whole culture and are now the good guys, yeh right.’
The positioning reminds me a bit of NAB bank break-up, but I think the reason it worked better for NAB was that it was unexpected so the same insight became a lot more effective than for BankWest where it is overly predictable.
For me, the direction that DDB has gone with their work for Westpac is a lot stronger as it diverts the story and all the attention away from the bank (such as their divorce help ad) while still making the bank an integral part of the message.
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Gotta admit though… Great to see something different out there for the sector. And this comes at a rather nice time where the big 4 have all had their share of controversies… Helicopters and a “we’re part of your family” mentality just doesn’t (and shouldn’t) cut it anymore. This might’ve worked a little while ago but people have their wits about them these days. No issue at all with the angle Bankwest have taken.
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Nagy….really?
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Bankwest is the author of BS. Having recently left them to CBA after 15 years and the worst 12 months of experiencing banking bull I think you absolutely don’t listen to the consumer. I have loads of emails and errors to prove it
Heres a concept that might work – treat your loyal life long custoners with respect and give them the competitive rates not just the new customers. They might then decide to hang around. Oh and when you do promise an interest rate – honour it!!! Bunch of BS. Never bank with Bankwest
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Paid promotion for Nagy, his client and his decades old idea. An ad that talks to the ad industry, not the consumer. No wonder Y&R has fallen off a cliff.
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so VMLY&R traded their reputation for 15 minutes of onstage ‘fame’ promoting a lacklustre campaign, and without citing any data to support their position.
That merger of data and creativity that WPP talks about is working really well.
I’d agree with ‘an actual CMO’ and reluctantly with serial commenter of little substance, Henry Innis.
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Bankwest strategy is basically slag out the other bank ads. The problem with this is nagy is assuming consumers know the big 4 bank ads. Thats a big assumption to make and its simply not true. Which is why this strategy and creative blows.
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If a chief creative officer comes out making claims like this – calling bullshit on Australian bank advertising he should probably back it up with some great creative work for the bank he works on. Unfortunately there is nothing creative about the Bankwest campaign. Nada. It is bland, boring, annoying wallpaper.
I’m not a huge fan of all the Westpac work but at least it makes me emotionally engage and it stands out.
Australians kinda hate boring, Paul.
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