CASE STUDY: Pop-culture icons underscore brand promise for NAB

Background

'More give, less take' has been NAB’s brand promise for more than four years. In late 2013, the bank wanted to remind the market of this differentiation and reinforce its position of making banking fairer for Australians.

Execution

To demonstrate NAB’s commitment to delivering more of the good and less of the bad in banking, Clemenger BBDO went back to the roots of what defined ‘good’ and ‘bad’ characteristics. The agency looked to pop-culture history to find iconic hero and villain characters with easily identifiable honourable or nefarious intentions.

Clemenger BBDO leveraged the Warner Bros. Consumer Products Commercial Clip Licensing resource in Australia to access the studio’s vast library of film, television and animation properties. Characters including Scooby-Doo, the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz and Looney Tunes favourite Road Runner all featured in the campaign.

"It's a fun campaign with a serious message," said NAB chief marketing officer Sandra de Castro.

The campaign employed TV, press, outdoor and digital advertising. Beyond the media buy, NAB created interactive games around the same theme, offering exclusive content on a dedicated MoreLess Hub. It also launched the campaign with a series of Facebook and Twitter posts that created interest prior to the paid-media campaign through cryptic clues.

Results

Campaign tracking found that the majority of the audience responded positively, with overall recognition far exceeding the target. The MoreLess Hub generated more than 11,600 page views and more than 9,000 visits. On average, 35 per cent of traffic engaged in the core call-to-action on the offer pages on the Hub (such as Transactions or Business Lending) and clicked through to apply on nab.com.au. The More/Less interactive game delivered 2,490 unique players across the NAB network, with just over 22,000 game plays in total.

CREDITS

Client: The full NAB Brand Marketing Team
Agency: Clemenger BBDO Melbourne
Creative Chairman:  James McGrath
Executive Creative Director:  Ant Keogh
Creative Directors: Julian Schreiber and Tom Martin, Rohan Lancaster and Darren Pitt
Account Team: Lee Simpson, Ben Knighton, Bel Danks-Woodley, Kate Joiner, Ben Willis
Planning: Paul Rees-Jones and Heather Lewis
Agency Producer:  Pip Heming
Agency Editor:  Sam Coates
Offline Editors:  The Butchery – Jack Hutchings and Graeme Pereira
Colourist:  Vincent Taylor
Online Editor:  The Refinery - Eugene Richards
Post Production Producers:  The Butchery - Jess Asz, Elle Bilston and Kate Guest
Music Supervisor:  Karl Richter – Level Two Music
Audio Production:  Paul Le Couteur - Flagstaff Studios
Warner Bros. Consumer Products Commercial Clip Licensing (Australia): Preston Kevin Lewis