Brief Explanation

The challenge: How do we get people to believe a bank is different when they have long thought the big banks collude with each other at the expense of their customers? The idea: Getting people to openly witness NAB break up from the other major banks. Australians have always believed their four biggest banks, Commonwealth, ANZ, Westpac and NAB work together fixing fees and eliminating competition. The reality for one of the four however is the opposite. NAB’s retail bank, the smallest of the ‘Big 4’, had invested two years making dramatic changes to be considered fairer and more competitive by their customers, but the changes had limited impact because of the perceived collusion between the major banks. So we had to get people, both NAB and non-customers, to identify with the brand by creating a difference that resonated with a cynical Australian public to show what the bank had become. This in a category notorious for its slow and minimal shifts in any customer movements and brand perceptions. How did we do this? Instead of fighting the perception of the big banks being ‘together’, we embraced it by letting the public witness NAB break up with the other banks. To demonstrate the point, the campaign launched on Valentine’s Day. Did NAB succeed? Break Up attracted 180,000 new-to-bank customers to NAB over the 11-week campaign driving a 39% increase in switcher preference while reducing customer defections by 27%, delivering a 61% net customer growth. Over the last 12 months this has delivered a 205% ROI based on acquired and retained customers. At brand level, all of NAB’s brand perception scores increased considerably, more than doubling its reputation for being ‘different’ and its ‘fairness’ reputation gap grew four fold over the competition. Break Up cemented NAB in the public consciousness with a single act. But beyond the campaign, its real legacy has been to create a platform that’s helping deliver a financial performance well above market growth by differentiating the bank’s reputation in a way that’s meaning more to the bank’s own customers and those of their biggest competitors.