Insight
Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) is the bank that promises to help Kiwis ‘be good with money’.
For home loans, that was a difficult thing to do. New Zealand’s super-heated property market had led to an increasingly competitive home loan environment.
Kiwi banks had responded with retail tactics – lots of rate advertising and signing incentives. It was coming down to who could shout the loudest and offer the best “gift” to new customers. Worse yet, BNZ couldn’t keep up. In 2013- 2014 BNZ was being outspent by its major competitors by four to one.
BNZ needed a way to compete without increasing spend. The answer: It went back to its brand promise and created Tailored Home Loan (THL), a mortgage product which helped Kiwi’s pay off their home loan faster by offsetting a family’s transaction accounts against their home loan resulting in reduced interest.
MediaCom’s challenge: Kiwis weren’t interested.
When the rest of the market is offering free PlayStations, widescreen TV’s or $3,000 cash in hand (actual competitor offers in market at time of campaign), a chance to “offset your mortgage to help you in the long-run” just isn’t that enticing…..
But the agency knew that while “prizes” might bring customers through the door, they weren’t helping NZ be good with money and were shifting the focus away from how much a home loan actually cost over time.
Strategy
The strategy was based on the insight that consumers will choose a short term gain even if it means a long term loss.
Research showed that this can be explained by a psychological default to a present-orientation (Source: The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life" (Simon & Schuster, 2008). When it comes to finances, NZ’s live for today and are extremely willing to accept something now, rather than to wait for something even better in the future. For example, New Zealand’s consumer loan and credit card debt increased around six-fold in the last 10 years (Source: Household debt levels: Reserve Bank of New Zealand).
So, when it comes to home loans, consumers will choose a short-term gain ( a PlayStation) even if it means a long term loss (lots of interest paid).
Thanks to THL, the average person could save up to $156,000 of interest over the lifetime of a $300,000 loan. BNZ needed a way to show Kiwi’s what this ‘long-term benefit’ looked like now.
MediaCom’s communications strategy was simple: Show them the money!
Real money would be the medium.
The strategy focused on giving Kiwi’s a financial wake-up call through creating tangible, credible experiences. Kiwis were ‘shredding’ their money on home loan interest and BNZ was going to show them what this looked like. This informed the way MediaCom engaged audiences across paid, owned and earned:
1. Cash in hand: Shock Kiwis from their “cash-in-the-hand’ mindset. This needed to be a personal experience so the agency looked to rich-engagement and one-on-one channels .
2. Help them Be Good With Money: Once BNZ had their attention it needed to offer a simple next step to support their behaviour change and incentivise a conversation with BNZ.
3. A Money Movement: Encourage a social conversation about the benefits long-term interest discounts.
Execution
Through conversations with BNZ the agency found out that every day, the New Zealand Reserve Bank removed from circulation and destroyed damaged currency. So, in a media first, it negotiated with the Reserve Bank to use millions of dollars in real shredded money.
Now it had its real money, BNZ was ready to shock NZ from its present-orientation.
Cash in hand:
• An installation was created to demonstrate the amount of money being wasted– the $6 million dollar glass house. Inside this was a massive pile of real shredded cash representing the amount that Kiwis pay in interest every four hours. The agency set this up in the busiest part of Auckland CBD and supported organic foot-traffic with geo-targeted mobile advertising.
• A cash van travelled to key locations across New Zealand and gave Kiwis the chance to hold $156K in shredded cash bricks – how much the average person could save.
• The agency also sent these cash bricks to 250 BNZ customers who could most benefit from THL, encouraging them to come in for a conversation.
Help them Be Good With Money:
• The activations were supported with a national advertising campaign across TV, Print and Digital which featured Kiwi’s making snow angels in shredded cash and communicating the THL benefits.
A Money Movement:
• BNZ leveraged its own channels to ensure these money experiences were linked back to BNZ and actively encouraged a conversation by sharing insights, footage and feedback through all BNZ owned channels (website, stores, social pages, community site).
Results
Shred changed the way BNZ talks about home loans and Kiwis jumped at the chance to make better financial decision.
The campaign set out to:
1. Grow home loan book by $500 million (net increase over last year) in Q1.
• Home loan enquiries increased by 13%
• BNZ call centres had a record number of enquiries over the campaign period
• BNZ mortgage lending increased by $600 million
2. Build brand awareness by 15% of BNZ as the bank that helps you be good with money
• 30% more people associated BNZ with ‘be good with money’
• Preference for BNZ increased by 11%
It also got NZ talking:
• 31 editorial news articles (7 regional print, 8 Auckland-based radio, 15 online) and more than 3.4 million readers and listeners reached. Against a population of 4.4 million this was a major coup.
• Launch video reached 1.1 million people on Facebook with 55,000 people watching the video in 17 hours.
The campaign became part of the home loan conversation. Records from the BNZ call centre showed that Kiwi’s were asking how to “shred” their home loan.