Advertisements are the perfect way to reach out to customers. However there have been many banking marketing trends that have raised some eyebrows. Briony Richter writes
Marketing can be completely game-changing for a brand in securing more customers, investments and partnerships.
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Creating an enticing ad that captures the attention of a large national audience is a tricky task. Unfortunately there have been some that have caught attention for the wrong reasons.
HSBC banking marketing trends
As a global banking giant, it’s important to remember that advertisements sent out will be read across hundreds of countries.
Therefore, a bank has to be sure that what they are saying will be translated exactly the same in all those countries. Now HSBC has an impressive success and continues to grow significantly across several markets.
However, big or small, marketing mishaps can happen to any company. Translation is where HSBC went wrong and in quite a hilarious manner.
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By GlobalDataWhen your brand is as global as HSBC there is a lot to lose if the advertising message doesn’t do what you expect it to. HSBC’s hit campaign with the tagline “assume nothing” ran for five years in the US and was extremely successful.
Lost in translation
Nonetheless, problems started when the bank expanded its campaign overseas.
A very simple banking marketing trend is to ensure correct translations. HSBC forgot that this process is not as simple as just converting the words directly into another language. As well as the actual words, the same meaning must be conveyed.
Therefore, in their marketing mishap, their tagline read “do nothing” in many countries. A seemingly tiny error ruined a five year long ad that cost the bank $10m. If you want customers to jump ship and join a bank, the tagline ‘do nothing’ certainly doesn’t sound like a call to action.
Assume nothing was a clever tagline from the bank to encourage customers to get involved with their finances and choose HSBC as the bank that better service their banking needs. It very quickly dropped the campaign and chose “The world’s local bank.”
Natwest: We are what we do
After the financial crisis, consumers globally lost trust in the big banking names. It took years and cost millions to get people back on board.
Although many marketing banking trends focus on elevating the positives in people and in society, they can also target groups in a more negative light. This does often cause anger among part of the audience.
NatWest’s ‘We are what we do,’ filmed in black and white asks it’s viewers to hold the bank to accountable for its actions.
The majority of the film is both honest and powerful, almost admitting the faults that banks had made during and after the crisis.
However, the ad also contains shots of football hooligans, as the voice over adds “we are stupid” as well. Now while the actions of certain people at some football games have been unacceptable, many viewed this part as insensitive.
DANSKE BANK’S ‘NEW NORMAL, NEW STANDARDS’
In 2012, Danske Bank launched a campaign entitles ‘New Normal, New Standards.’
After the financial crisis, the bank pushed forward with new campaigns to demonstrate the changes it has made to better meet the needs of all its customers. The film showed clips that promoted global change, both socially and financially. Much of the film is extremely positives and demonstrates a real sense of change.
However, the bank caused uproar by using clips from the Occupy Movement which centered around the role banks and financial institutions had during the financial crisis. Users across social media accused Danske Bank of belittling the movement and its message.
“The strategy is intended to restore trust in the bank and ensure that we live up to our new vision of being recognised as the most trusted financial partner. In order to reach that objective we must sent new standards for banking operations.”
Banking marketing trends often follow the mass opinion of consumers. While it is hard to please everyone through advertising one crucial thing that banks must ensure is that they consistently live up to the standards they are promoting.
