A bank with personality

It's not often you think of a bank as having a personality, or better yet a sense of humour. I had to chuckle when I saw this print ad by Kiwibank inviting NZ columnist Kerre Woodham. It's nicely played and a good approach to the bank switching wars currently in progress.  

For those of you unaware - National Bank will soon be rebranded with customer account being switched to National's owner ANZ bank.

With so much potential to draw National Bank customers to change banks it' suprising that most advertising is focused on brand without compelling reasons to make the jump.  At the end of the day, even if customers don't like losing the NB Bank brand, it's still easy to do nothing than actively switch from ANZ.

Here's what some of other NZ banks are doing to get entice National Bank customers across:

TSB

Went with the "everyone hates" Australians angle...
 

ASB

Used their switching print ad to promote their Canstar Online Banking Award and position themselves as being alot like National Bank.

 

Westpac

Went down the kindergarten route with a colour metaphor - I like the simplicity but lacks an arguement for choosing Westpac over other banks.

BNZ

And perhaps the most interesting campaign is from BNZ. Although not a switching campaign as such their well timed teaser campaign created public debate around the purppose of money that has raised BNZ's profile recently...

ANZ

And course ANZ is busy convincing National Bank customers that nothing will change.