There’s an old adage in financial marketing: “It’s all about the rate.” Recent evidence from two different case studies suggests that’s wrong.

Case Study #1

Take BankWest’s promotion to launch a new savings account, where they tested two versions of their online ads. Both versions of the ad were animated. In the first version, the ad started by introducing a big rate. In the other version, they led with a photo.

Bottom Line: The version of the ad leading with the photo generated three times as many deposits as the version leading with the rate.

Key Question: Have you ever tried testing two versions of your marketing?

Case Study #2

Yesterday, some well-respected voices in the financial industry blogged about a South African bank that conducted an interesting marketing test. One version of the bank’s loan mailer had a man’s photo in it, another version had a woman’s photo.

Bottom Line: The woman’s photo impacted the bank’s male customers about as much as dropping the loan’s interest rate by 4.5%. (Women, it seems, were less impressionable.)

Key Takeaways:

• With both deposit and loan promotions, there’s a lot more to it than just the rate. Other psychological and emotional factors are at work.
• Be brave and have the courage to experiment. Financial marketers need to conduct more tests like these.
• Pay attention to what’s really driving your results, but be prepared to have your assumptions challenged.
• The next time you do a rate-based promotion, shift your focus from the rate to a photo and see what happens.

Little details can have a huge impact on the bottom line. As one credit union marketer recently pointed out, even something as subtle as a pronoun can make a big difference.

Further Reading:

• A Pretty Woman Beats a Good Loan Deal
• Sexy Nude Chicks by Ron Shevlin
  
• If sex is selling then I am buying! by Tony Mannor
• The Little Things by Andy LaFlamme

When BankWest in Australia expanded to the East Coast, they redesigned their branch prototype and gave it a total makeover. To tout their new retail stores, the bank put a neat, interactive flash tour on its website.

The tour includes 11 different “hot spots.” Pause your mouse on a hotspot and it reveals some little tidbit about the branch.

These stores should fit nicely with BankWest’s brand theme, “Happy Banking” (previous coverage from The Financial Brand here). If you haven’t seen their outrageous TV spots, you should definitely go check them out.

To give you an idea of how far BankWest takes “happy,” they are the “Official Happy Partner” for the 2008 Australian Olympics.

Also supporting their “Happy Banking” theme is a novelty microsite that defies explanation. It must be seen to be believed. (Hint: Singing kittens are involved.)

Now the bank has a branch model that fits right in. While the branches don’t ooze “happy” as much as the rest of the brand, there is a general perky cheer to the design.

They should put out Skittles in candy dishes for customers. They could call them “happy pills.”

:60 seconds on BankWest’s new East Coast retail stores:

• BankWest ditched traditional teller bays in lieu of cash recyclers, which allow more freedom of movement within the store for both staff and customers.
• BankWest refers to its new branches as “stores” as they will be retailing non-financial merchandise such as money boxes and financial books.
• Meeting spaces have been designed with movable walls so that more space can be created in the store for customer seminars.
• Traditional bank branches are often quite masculine, sterile places. The new design incorporates more earthy tones with wood and cork flooring and feature lighting. Or, as the interactive tour puts it, “Warm, friendly colors, not traditional bank colors.”

Source: The Bank Channel

Singing kittens. An interview with a talking flower. Make believe statistics. Surely the “Happy Banking” campaign from Australia’s BankWest seems a little strange at first.

That’s because it is a little strange. But that’s a good thing.

The multicomponent campaign takes aim squarely at Australia’s big banks – specifically their lack of style and innovation. The campaign includes banner ads (example shown at right), TV ads, and a microwebsite.

At the microsite (shown below, left), BankWest asks, “Can a bank make people happy?” The ultrasimple site goes on to explain that the bank has discovered that “kittens can make people happy by reducing stress levels.”

To test their kitten theory, visitors are asked to type in their name and pick their gender, launching a video that features a singing trio of kittens, followed by a graph (shown above, right) bearing “proof” to the efficacy of kittens.

BankWest’s campaign is more than just offbeat advertising. The bank is actually backing up the campaign with some different ideas – some real substance – things their big bank rivals can’t or won’t do.

A talking flower with an intriguing accent (shown left) says she makes more friends when she’s open, a narrative device used to introduce the bank’s new 7-day schedule. Another spot (shown right) has a talking sun that promises home loan rates 0.75% lower than Australia’s big four banks.

Reality Check: Most financial advertising is exceptionally dull and fails miserably at cutting through today’s advertising noise.

“Happy Banking” will resonate with those seeking an antidote to lifeless financial institutions, similar to WaMu’s “Whoohoo!“ campaign.

One thing is for sure: It is a significantly better way to differentiate than the Mad Max/Crocodile Dundee spoof produced by Commonwealth Bank, also in Australia. Commonwealth’s spot was widely derided as a cheap and gimmicky stunt.

Key Questions:

• Who is BankWest’s target audience?
  Are they targeting a younger market (perhaps Gen-Y)?
• What is BankWest’s brand strategy?
• What cultural and advertising realities specific to Australia might influence this campaign?

Bottom Line:

• Branding is all about differentiation.
• BankWest’s campaign has a refreshing, distinct, unstuffy style supported by real competitive differences.
• The campaign will get noticed, yielding a higher return for each marketing dollar.