Mumbo Report: CommBank’s Mark Buckman on reinvigorating one of Australia’s biggest brands

How about, just for once, this doesn’t became a cavalcade of people slagging off CommBank for going with an American agency, and criticising the work.

While I’m not saying they’ve got everything right, this is a more interesitng brand than many of the less thought through comments usually allow.

Hey Tim, Mark has been getting a few runs on Mumbrella of late – which is all good, I was just curious as to what is fuelling the curiosity in ‘Mark?’

It might be a “more interesting brand” from the perspective of someone in the industry but I think most average punters would consider CommBank more like CommWank given its latest series of navel-gazing, aren’t-we-so-clever-and-different ads. Who is this meant to appeal to – suits making decisions and ad-men, or the masses?

“We considered Australian agencies before we went anywhere else”. By that logic, no-one in Australia was good enough. Ouch.

Good insight into the strategy of Commbank’s repositioning. Perhaps it’s not so much that Australian agencies weren’t good enough, but as most of us look to the US from time to time for inspiration so too did the Commonwealth Bank.

In my opinion a fresh set of eyes can do wonders. And it did.

Agree with Athan, CommBank has such strong brand associations within Australia that to get a fresh persective and do something completely different it’s not surprising they looked outside.

Regardless of how wanky people may see it, its success will ultimately be judged on how many customers they drive.

I didn’t think any of the Aussie banks were good enough so I looked overseas too – and opened up an account with the HSBC…

Its all ar@e about really, in my humble view your marketing shouldn’t pontificate about how different your brand is when you are not…yet.

A brand should be built from the inside out, so you get the product and the service how you want it i.e. ideally differentiated, releveant and compelling, and then you tell people why you are different, and how you deliver it should reflect that.

Comm Bank was different in how they said it first, but we are still waiting for what they actually do that is different – besides the ads!

Don’t their tv ads kind of poke fun at American agencies against the down to earth good old Aussies? And then they go overseas to said American Agencies for their marketing….

And marketing is one thing – when the bank can back it up with an appropriate customer experience then we will start to believe the spin. Personally I’d like to see the Australian market really shaken up – imagine if Google opened a bank….

Tim

Perhaps CommBRELLA is a more appropriate title for your publication! You may be interested to know there are four major banks in this country!

The new ads may have some impact in the higher socio economic suburbs. I don’t think in Australia’s heartland (ie where the majority of Australians live – such as Sydney’s west) the Jean-Pierre Rabbit style is going to have much of an influence. Designed by the affluent for the affluent.

I think there is a tempation to think that when creating advertisements that “controversy” is always a measure of success.

Perhaps for some industries, some segments and some new consumer products that is entirely appropriate, because getting people talking about you is almost always a good thing when you are virutally invisible and you have no brand equity to protect.

However visibility or awareness is not, and has never been, CBA’s problem, and so “edgy”, controversal ads that turn off a substantial proportion of the target audience is not success, I’m afraid. Especially in CBA’s case where there is substantial brand equity to protect.

It is possible to make creative that creates empathy and likeability without being annoying for a substantial porportion of the audience. However unfortunately this new suite of ads from CBA are not examples of that.

There is so much that annoys me (apart form the exhorbitant expense) such as the close up of the dog’s balls in the opening shot of one of the new ads. Really? Are we still 12 years old?

It must be nice being part of the management team at one of the four big banks.
Only four competitors. That is why we get million dollar non-funny ads like this thrown at us.
Competition brings innovation. Lack of competition brings dribble.