Honesty is the best (financial advertising) policy
For too long, financial advertising has been filled with cliches that don’t ring true to your average customer. But if financial advertisers stopped the hyperbole and started broadcasting messages that customers actually believe, they’d have a much better chance of succeeding, writes Savvy’s Satwik Chavda.
How many times have you sat down in front of the television, only to be greeted with the sickly sweet tones of a lulling piano melody, coupled with an earnest voiceover of a woman reading some poetry about how homes, family, and [insert random emotional drawcard here] are everything to her?
You sit there, wondering what on earth this is an ad for, when, in the final few seconds, you realise it’s a… finance ad. Unsurprisingly, you’re probably not filled with love for the brand. Perhaps you’re instead filled with irritation and a vague sense of confusion. Or, even worse, you simply dismiss the ad and forget about it.
Marketers aren’t making their ads to be dismissed or ignored. And I get it: marketing financial services is tricky. It’s definitely not the sexiest category in the world, and advertising often needs to get across complex, boring ideas in the simplest and most engaging way possible. It’s no small feat.
Or is it just the actual customer experience of dealing with a bank/financial institution? Improving perception with emotionally led messaging in this category is a challenge, because these advertisers haven’t sorted themselves out internally and the experience is usually sub-par (sweeping statement, not all are that bad).
Woudn’t it be more honest to say: “Don’t take a loan to pay for this car that you cannot afford?” Yes. But where does that leave us and many of our auto clients?
Barefoot Investor says don’t buy a car except one you can pay for with cash. He’s right but in advertising, finance and auto we do not want that message to get out.
Now take the loan, buy this car. It has leather & a turbo & and it’s SHINY!
Barclays is great.
But the 15 minute guided mediation is a silly gimmick that appeals only to ad-land and won’t even register with the target market.
It’s a pity the search for good examples didn’t look locally – Challenger had a series of superb ads for their annuities a few years ago, which were groundbreaking because they empathised with retirees hit by the GFC and admitted that a long retirement is a double-edged sword.