Tuesdata: The home loan providers that spent big as we entered a cost of living crisis

Welcome to the latest instalment of Tuesdata.

The thought of interest rates and home loans may make you shudder at the minute, but it’s a highly appropriate time to look providers that have spent big dollars recently to get in front of consumers who may now be economically challenged or nervous about the current economic climate.

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Australia is moving deeper into a cost of living crisis. Interest rates are rising and are predicted to keep increasing. The cost of necessities such as food and petrol are going up rapidly, and Australian property values are starting to sink in key markets. 

Certain sectors are directly in the crossfire, like home loans. The sinking house values and rising interest rates have seen auction results plummet in the major markets, turning what was a seller’s market very quickly into a buyer’s market. But this has also led to a decreased amount of buyers around. 

According to Domain Home Loans Mortgage broker Millind Garg, it will take about three to six months to get a clearer picture of the situation. “People just want to sit on the fence in anticipation and get some clarity on what’s actually going to happen with rates and property prices.”

Recently, the cash rate went from the historic low of 0.1 against record high house prices to now sit at 0.85. While that is still very low, the Reserve Bank of Australia has flagged continued increases. Search volumes on Domain are down as much as 45% for April year on year. 

Today we will use Nielsen Ad Intel to find out who has spent the most in advertising over the last year (June 2021 to May 2022) across all media as the housing market continued its rise before beginning the decline. 

We have also included the TV ad spot count from Canda for the listed brands home loan products only. This gives an indication of how much of the strategy used TV. 

For the period in question, advertising spend sat at $86.5m in total for home loan brands. Below are the top five advertisers in the home loan category. 

The top five home loan brands by advertising spend

Top five advertisers in the home loan category from June ‘21 to May ‘22

1. Macquarie Group

CMO and head of growth: Craig Griffin 

A rate decrease in an environment of increases. Matching the interest rates of your transaction accounts to be equal to those of your brand’s high interest savings account. It all sounds like the work of a neobank. But in this case, it’s Macquarie Group, the Australian-based global financial services group that employs more than 17,000 staff across 33 markets. 

With those kind of moves in mind, it’s no surprise that it wishes to back it up with marketing. In 2017 it launched the ‘I bank with Macquarie’ platform, which it still uses in its campaigns today.

According to CMO and head of growth Craig Griffin speaking at April’s Salesforce World Tour, the platform began internally before shifting to become an external platform as well. 

“I bank with Macquarie began as an internal program for advocates. We knew we couldn’t get the community to believe in it if we couldn’t get our own staff to believe it,” he said. “What creates opportunity is customers. We have to be crystal clear on who our customers are. Some have a mindset really aligned to our brand, and they’re the core of who we build solutions for.” 

2. Athena

CMO: Natalie Dinsdale

From the get go, Athena was serious about its marketing strategy, appointing The Royals to its creative account prior to launching in 2019. Jaywing and Polkadot joined the fold soon after. 

CMO Natalie Dinsdale quickly brought to life the ‘Love us and leave us’ tagline which still runs today. She also allowed the agency partners to create campaigns which were unique in their departure from standard financial services creative. That included the often used secondary tagline, “F**k fees’. 

One of the bigger campaigns created by Athena and its partners was the ‘Take me home loan’ series that featured presenter, comedian and filmmaker, Dan Ilic as well as comedian, actor and writer Susie Yousef. 

Athena has also tried a range of other creative ideas including a digital out of home campaign featuring people trying to break out of the billboards. 

Late last year Mumbrella reported that Dinsdale believed the pandemic had played into the hands of the big four banks, but brands like Athena could work hard to create trust amongst consumers. 

“We have zero fees, but we needed to produce a lot of content in our marketing to educate consumers that it wasn’t too good to be true,” she said. “And it wasn’t just an acquisition strategy. The zero fees are for new and existing customers. We don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk.

“We are crystal clear about the differences, we want to tell customers there is a different way. But as you come further down the funnel there are a lot of educational pieces which are very important.”

3. Suncorp

CMO: Mim Haysom 

Like Macquarie Group, Suncorp goes way beyond home loans. It has, however, chosen to spend some of its marketing budget directly promoting its home loan business. 

But there are much bigger things going on in the marketing department for the financial services brand. 

In February this year Mumbrella reported that Suncorp would be using an all-new agency model across its range of brands including Suncorp Bank and Suncorp Insurance brands, which includes GIO, AAMI, Apia, Shannons, Vero, Bingle, Terri Scheer, Essentials by AAI, and Caravan and RV Insurance.

Haysom told Mumbrella that Suncorp has “…nine brands in the portfolio and two tier-one agencies, plus Frank Moore for our niche brands”. The tier one agencies are Leo Burnetts and Ogilvy. Production would be centralised within WPP agency Hogarth. 

Suncorp will roll out the new solution over 2022 which means we have yet to see the real fruits of the idea.

4. National Australia Bank

CMO: Suzana Ritsevski

Another brand that has been through significant change, NAB shifted its creative from Clemenger BBDO Melbourne in July last year and now works with TBWA Melbourne. 

The relationship with Clemenger lasted 15 years. The brand platform it helped create in 2016 lives on, however, with TBWA creating the first work using the ‘More than money’ platform in May this year. Mindshare remains the media agency while Principals updated the identity. 

It focuses on the big four bank’s range of offerings including home loans. 

Ritsevski, who has been in the CMO position since 2018, told CMO last year that the pandemic had created new consumer behaviours with the brand, including a significant upswing in customers using its digital platforms. 

“The digital acceleration we have seen since the beginning of Covid has been phenomenal,” she said. “We saw a shift in the way Australians want to bank with us. For example, use of mobile banking apps went from 35% in March to 59% by September 2020.”

5. ING

Head of marketing: Danielle Hamilton 

The industry could be forgiven for thinking that ING went silent during the pandemic. Unless you were a customer, you may not have noticed it much. That’s because the digital-first bank decided not to shift its marketing budget to pandemic messaging, according to an article in AdNews, but to focus on customer needs and partnerships instead. 

One such partnership included paying the delivery fee on all Uber Eats orders made using an ING card. 

It also launched a content series called ‘Real Talk’ with agency partner CHE Proximity, where it enlisted influencers and celebrities to provide some guidance for its customers during the pandemic. 

With the worst of Covid-19 seemingly over, ING has focused again on core products, including home loans. Its latest campaign features a lion participating in the daily life of ING customers. 

While it doesn’t necessarily affect the home loan customers, it’s worth noting that ING has had a small fire to battle of late, with main media picking up on an apparent spate of customer dumping, where the bank shuts down customer accounts allegedly without providing any proper reason. 

Green, green, green

The Unmade Index lit up green yesterday as a number of brands enjoyed significant gains. 

Every single business on the Unmade Index registered an increase, with Enero Group the highest, gaining 9.26%. Ooh Media wasn’t far behind, up 8.07% while Seven West Media enjoyed another successful day, up 7.89%.

The Index now sits at 642.1 points having jumped 5.54%.

Some legal advice

That’s it for today. Time to let you get on with whatever else is important in your day.

Before I go, look out on Thursday for a special post including a video presentation. It’s by Von Muenster Legal’s Stephen von Muenster, who specialises in technology, media and communications.

In the presentation he will share an overview of the numerous current regulator inquiries, investigations and reports and briefly discuss law reform impacting agencies and advertisers. 

Through the lens of recent court decisions where advertisers got it wrong, he will also overview the most important legal and regulatory areas impacting the day to day work of agencies.

We will provide the video, transcript and presentation for Unmade subscribers. Make sure you don’t miss it. 

Until next time, stay well.

Damian

damian@unmade.media