NAB escalates war on its rivals with video stunts

Such an impressive ad campaign … well done NAB! Here’s hoping it delivers converted customers.

WOW!
They’re not determined to be different – they actually are different.
I just felt a breath of fresh air.

For once a genuinely daring and brilliantly insightful bank campaign. The team at NAB and their agencies should be applauded.

There’s no Marylands in Perth, probably meant Maylands. It annoys WA people so much when east coasters get it wrong.

I heard one of the ads on radio today, and it left me totally confused as to if the ad was for ANZ or NAB.

For some reason I don’t like this campaign at all. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

That’s one of the lamest, biggest wastes of money I’ve seen in a long time. 60 bankers breaking up in public with some of the worst acting imaginable and lines like “you are too money hungry” or my favourite “I don’t like your statements”. Please.

Then you add in the inference that to break up with someone you must have been in bed with them. Great look that. OK the insight might be that everyone thinks we are in bed with each other anyway so let’s play on it but where is the single minded point of difference? A timeline showing us how great you are?

This has MFA Award written all over it. Very clever use of media. Media campaign of the year for 2011 – 46 days in!

I think the idea has some merit i.e. trying to separate NAB from the “big bank” pack -although the executions are a little “wooden”.
Having said that consumers are now more skeptical about bank ads than they have ever been, and I doubt that the day to day customer experience will live up to the “ideals” of the marketing message .
Despite the best efforts of the marketers the reality is that, at branch level, NAB will still behave like a “big bank” with all the associated fees, policies and frustrations that have become the hallmark of these organizations. Thereby creating a disconnect between the “message” of the campaign and the customer reality.

i think NAB execs have set themselves up for an ambush at their swanky lunches and cruises. it’s only fair.

still, i like these.

Reality – banks operate in a oligopoly situation and are pretty much all the same.
Reality – this is a good campaign.
Reality – banks operate in an oligopoly situation and are pretty much all the same.

Mind you Coles has shaken Woolworths with better marketing and a great pricing campaign “Down, Down – prices are down”.
Maybe NAB may actually follow these ads up with a differentiated product from the other three.

Before advertising comes trust. For a bank that’s more important. So, when I see a bank start a commercial with a super that says: Westpac WIP Meeting and am lead to believe its a real Westpac meeting populated by real Westpac employees only to discover it’s not a Westpac ad populated by Westpac employees it makes me angry.
If NAB thinks its OK to deliberately lie, misrepresent and deceive to get business, personally I’d rather give my business to someone else. If I was Westpac and the CommBank I would sue the living pants off BBDO and NAB and/or demand a public apology.

This campaign stinks…..

Once again the NAB arrogantly positions itself as the “manager of relationships” With its customers and now its industry.

Well, relationships aren’t “managed” by anyone. Not the bank and not the customer.

Relationships are two way and most successful when they are exclusive…. And the exclusivity in the banking world is between the BANK & SHAREHOLDERS, with the executives getting their bit on the side !

Please, your short films made on the cheap do nothing for me…I still pay you ridiculous interest rates to fund your advertising BS.

Your claim that customers saved $230m thanks to fee cuts is great…maybe you should have allocated it to people who can services me in the call centre, or better online capability, or god forbid – mobile banking/payments services.

What crap…

its certainly different so props to whoever took the gamble at NAB and said yes.

like the pranks – the break up vids no so much

but, yeah, i like it

A really cool idea…but now dying in the drawn out execution.

stunning use of the social media & crowd sourced form. award winning performance. grats to the creative team & NAB running with it..

I love people who state opinion as fact, nickatnights. I can’t stand the Coles campaign (and I’d love to see the out-takes of staff suggestively pointing downwards) … but that’s just my opinion.

can the pr people and the ad people who think they are pr people piss off and let some real opinions in?

@brilliant you said it all! One of the best integrated SM led campaigns ever.

These ads just confirmed to me that NAB was one of the big bad four, so the break up has been a long time coming.

I guess that means no more boozey lunches for NAB execs then!

It is great that the marketing attempts to differentiate, but NAB better have plans of action to follow through and quickly (past paying mortgage exit costs).

There has been many “we are different” promo of late – i.e. how quick CBA customer service is to the point of ladies fainting … a scripted advertisement does not the service delivery maketh!

ultimately unless these guys change their ways all this stuff is an insufferable wank. while this activity represents a windfall for the agencies involved and a bit of interest for the rest of us in the industry, oligopoly players have no REAL incentive to be different from each other, the trick here is to pretend that they are different.

the punchline is that all the people the campaign convinces to switch to NAB will quickly realise they were conned on the way in (anyone remember the recent computer glitches??!!), and so the customer merry-go-round will continue.

my advice is to ditch ALL OF THE BIG FOUR and go where service and value can still be found

Nice to see something different….even if it is for a bank. Hopefully the new customers they might get don’t have issues actually getting to their cash should their systems go down again.

Good to see a good multichannel (online/ offline campaign) even if it does remind me a bit of Microsoft’s Breakup campaign https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3qltEtl7H8

If NAB were serious about ‘breaking ranks’, they would have dropped their cash rate by 25 basis points – now that would have been a significant gesture. Did they?

It’s naught but smoke and mirrors people. Come on, you’re all smarter than that.

creative commercial for a bank got to give it to them, not the boring old TVC and dry newspaper ad.

The videos are clearly fake, but they never claim they’re real – it’s satire, funny, different – something a bank has never done before… It has completely dominated Twitter, trended all day and aside from a promoted topic was at top spot for most of the EST afternoon. Brave brave brave… and deserves all the credit it gets! Well done NAB!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3qltEtl7H8

erm. how quickly you all forget the inflation increase over the reserve’s recommended rate. some shinny ad campaign and we’re all cooing after NAB again. seriously people wake up.

oh. not to be a party pooper but the ad is just a filming of a stunt. nothing special or partucularly clever about that. is there? may be it’s just lost on me?

Well lets see what NAB does when the Reserve bank lifts interest rates. I doubt they will keep theirs at the current level.

And now if i use a BAN atm to take money out when i am with another bank will they still gouge me $2? of course they will.

They are still greedy bastards, its all just smoke and mirrors.

Can one of the banks take out a retraining order on NAB. They are showing all the signs of a jilted ex lover, stalking, spying and bending the truth

Tony Bee – Woolies announce their first profit downgrade in almost two decades . Fact. Coles announces best results in a decade. Fact.
Down, Down – works in places like Sydney’s greater west where ad execs only visit once a year on their way to Leura.

Right now – 8.50am Wednesday morning – the NABs new campaign is one of the top stories on http://www.smh.com.au
NAB certainly have people talking.

Congrats for the taking a different approach we should all embrace risk taking and innovation. Hoping all hidden camera footage is real otherwise would appear that a great concept got cut down by some last minute conservatism that will undermine whole idea and backfire big time.

Can’t argue with the creative, the execution or the metrics for that matter.

Yes, NAB are getting air and gums flapping, but when the dust settles will they still be a tired old “4-pillar” bank?

It’s hard not to be cynical, given the current state of affairs vis a vis bank regulation and competition, timing with this campaign.

Feels a little like WWE wrestling; even though the competition looks credible, you know everyone’s in on it.

Firstly, well done to the NAB for daring to break the mould and offer a real competitive point of difference in their service offering. I feel they have certainly made their point known with this campaign.

On the creative execution, the campaign premise is strong but trying to seduce the audience in thinking that the scenarios are real lets it down. Creatives might see through it and call it satire but I don’t feel that is blatant enough here to be true. I don’t really get the Bankers breaking up videos. The ones I watched had no impact on the crowd around the couple breaking up which means it’s a purely voyeuristic experience for the viewer and on that front I felt the scripting and acting were average at best.

This campaign is a great example of how a big idea can be top of the pops in social media, but that’s all for nought if it doesn’t actually convert viewers or readers into customers. I’d love to see it work (because we need some good case studies), but I’m not expecting many people to change banks overnight. We’re all good at staying in bad relationships when it comes to banking. But I think I will call my Dragon and ask her what she’s prepared to do to keep me.

Good on NAB for releasing the hounds.

I’d be interested to know why NAB felt it necessary to graffiti all over the streets of Melbourne. This is a novel, but I just feel like the banks are trying too hard. I still can’t change banks simply and easily as I can in the UK. Work on that, then let’s talk.

Hello, adlanders, are you all insane?

What is really in this for customers? This is NAB obssessed, as ever, by itself, and not the people it is meant to serve.

Lets talk strategy.

Why would NAB:

1) Reinforce through their you tube video, that the big four banks are full of banker wankers?
2) Imply through their messaging, that they have been involved in a relationship with the other big three banks that has benefited shareholders, to the detriment of millions of customers?

Its seems strange that the NAB and most recently the ANZ bank have gone down the track of painting a bad light on the banking industry.

I grew up with my parents banking with two of the big four banks, and having the upmost of respect for there bank managers whom they delt with. My parents in turn had a good impression of the banks they delt with, as these banks allowed them to achieve dreams in life. They still respected the bank manager despite the fact that the interest rate climbed to 17% in the late 80s.

Why don’t the banks show some respect for themselves. Many people respect banks, because they have the potential to fulfil peoples dreams and asprations.
Focus on a positive agenda.

LOVE IT! Awesome example of a great branding campaign.

In response to GR, it actually makes very good PR sense to address the perceptions that many people have about you and show some contrition and empathy. Entities that ignore the elephant in the room are destined to be trampled by it.

Love all the really cool stencil art on footpaths NAB. Wow, who knew you could be such a cool and funky brand.

Go NAB! I love banks!!

Fantastic integrated campaign actually led by digital media! Love it! And, oh how I would love to be running Westpac, CBA or ANZ’s digital marketing right now so I could respond. Fun, fun challenge.

What a load of self-indulgent crap.

Hi Tony Bee

Understand the “elephant in the room” phenomenon, but why are the NAB and The ANZ going out of the way to pump up the elephant on steroids. If there are some perception issues with the Banks, why don’t they work hard to get the issues right (ie Comm Bank focus on Customer Service) instead of laying down and laughing about the fact that there is a problem. I don’t think admitting that bankers are wankers, and insinuating that they have been on the take together is addressing perceptions. More like reinforcing perceptions.

Bankers were given a bad name by the sort of irresponsible bankers that inhibited businesses like Lehman Brothers, who were largely responsible for the GFC. Our Big Four banks were not part of that crowd. They survived and thrived. Why do the NAB and the ANZ start campaigns that seek to stain all bankers with the Lehman brush and present themselves in such a poor light.

ad folks might think this is clever and it might register on consumers’ radars for a few minutes. but unless the NAB has something substantially different and better in it’s offering that provides real value and differentiation then the campaign is a pile of twaddle.

So NAB has delivered the dear John letter – when the next NAB customer dials their call centre and waits 25 minutes to speak to someone who’ll be laughing at fake execs on rented boats? It’d be really good to see NAB and others focussing on increasing value and decreasing effort to really stand out.

Really really makes me just not like NAB at all. Kind of makes them look like jerks. Not a brand I want to hang out with.

This will definately make a captivating Award video,
But really, will anyone in the general public ever
a) see it.
b) understand it
c) even care.

Clever, innovative, stylish, well executed across so many mediums and definitely made some rounds across office emails.
Yes, the banking ad landscape is a bit heavy on attack dog tactics at the moment but it’s still a good campaign.

It just needs to tick the last box – to actually drive customers or rival banks to move to NAB. If it does, then i think applause is deserved.

Think NAB’s campaign is being starved of oxygen [as they say in politics].
The other big 3 haven’t bitten the bait, except for maybe Westpac with their rate cut.
No doubt NAB have more product and service stories to roll out. Be interesting how the the big 3 respond to them, or if they respond at all. Sometimes ‘things’ disappear faster if you just ignore them. For an old hack the ads aren’t half as interesting as watching the strategies.

love it – fantastic! we need a bit of cheekyness in the world these days, everyone is so boring and proper – made me laugh! fabulous!

it’s on par with the anz barbara bank manager ads.

a friend of mine who works at a big bank call survey center where they ring customers said that ‘barbara’ has actually become a common term, “they tell me that they sick of bank staff who are ‘barbara’s'” LOL

Quote from a NAB ad today.

“The fact is, we’re just not like them”. (other banks)

Can some bank people come back to me, and explain how NAB is changed so fundamentally that this quote is more than just spin?
Some questions:

1) Are NAB bankers more human, and in better in touch with the common man?
2) Does NAB not do corporate entrainment on boats, restaurants or corporate boxes at concerts like the other banks?
3) Is NAB so compelling at differentiator in price, service, IT infrastructure and product offerings compared to other banks.

Can someone provide some input for me on these questions? These are questions that potential customers could ask them.

All those who think this is a good campaign probably enjoy spending clients money on making clever ads. But that’s not good brand building and its not good call to action marketing. NAB are shouting aloud how they are different – yet in terms of underlying brand delivery there’s nothing that’s changed. Short term differences in variable rates are a pricing discount strategy, that’s all.

NAB will likely confuse or piss off there existing customers who know better, and if they lure customers those will soon realise that nothing is actually that different.

You have to feel sorry for NAB, they’re certainly trying hard. A bit too hard actually. The trouble is, I still don’t care. And I don’t think that a bank that uses social media is fundamentally a different bank. A bank is not a just brand it’s an essential service and on that front NAB fails as much (or as little, from a shareholders point of view) as any other bank.

Pretty hard to break through the public’s negative ‘big bank’ sentiments via the impersonal medium of online, pretty hard to get there by taking the piss out of rivals (which are all seen as behaving exactly the same) and pretty hard to get joe public to care enough to listen. Tough gig for sure.

Where NAB should focus its efforts is at branch where the tangible reality of its brand still exists. That’s where it can ‘reach out and touch’ customers, demonstrating its differences experientially. I know there’s a decreasing number of interactions at branch, but we all get there at some time right?

“to..improve customer service would be suicide”…

Could this statement have come from any other industry than banking?

(except perhaps airlines)

The creative & execution is exemplery, wll done NAB, especially for daring to be a bit different.

The underlying offer though – removing one fee off of one home loan product – is a pretty weak proposition.

I believe that customers are smart enough to work out what a lame offer it is, its a shame NAB didn’t back it up with something more compelling.

i see a lot of people from clemenger post and a couple of NAB bank staff are commenting on this, however The finical week and the Australian both criticised this gimick of an advert. Is this the reason as to why NAB customers are leaving in large number?

How can a bank falsely advertise and make false statement? I thought these bank were regulated by the ACCC, where is Mr Samuels!

I can now understand why so many customers inculding myself are leaving
the NAB, who really wants to be with a bank that chooses too mislead it customers.