Erste has launched a new
advertising campaign to run across all of the Central and Eastern
European countries in which the bank operates. Philip List, head of
group marketing at Erste, tells Douglas Blakey it is the first
marketing campaign from the bank to incorporate social media such
as Facebook.
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Austria’s Erste Bank kicked off an
integrated advertising campaign in its domestic market on 1 July,
its most ambitious marketing effort since the onset of the economic
crisis. The campaign also marks the first use by Erste of social
media.
Erste will extend the campaign
during August across all of the seven international markets in
Central and Eastern Europe in which the bank operates.
Philip List, head of group
marketing at Erste, told RBI that the campaign is split in
two different concepts tailored to the specific market needs of the
various countries and will run on TV and online. Erste Group’s
philosophy of responsible banking forms the basis of the
advertising exercise.
“A valuable finding from the crisis
was that we have to focus even more on our core strength: our
ideals and the core values we have built since Erste was formed in
1819,” said List. “The overall objective of the campaign is to
reaffirm our commitment towards our customers as being a trusted
banking partner.”
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By GlobalDataList said that the bank decided to
proceed with two distinct marketing messages, – ‘balanced banking’
and ‘who are you banking with?’ after conducting thorough market
research.
The ‘balanced banking’
campaign will run in Austria, the Czech Republic, Serbia and
Ukraine and focuses on responsible banking. The ad features two
presenters – Petra Kern and Martin Wohlich – cast in the role of
bank advisers at Erste Group, who will talk about current topics
relating to money.
“The ad creative is designed to
personify responsible banking by showing that everything in life
has two parts which have to be balanced – just like people’s
money.”
List said that the ‘balanced
banking’ message was aimed to place Erste’s advisory service in
focus and that the campaign creative would develop in the form of a
soap opera.
“We have introduced the characters.
There is no specified time limit for the campaign to run – it can
go on as long as we consider the campaign to be successful,” he
said. The second concept called, ‘who are you banking with?’ will
be shown in Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia and Romania. It emphasises
that it does matter which bank you choose and with whom you would
entrust your money. The question ‘who are you banking with?’ is the
central theme in the campaign and is crafted to appear in a
surprising and unexpected way.
In those markets, Erste believe
there is scope to target potential account switchers.
“While customers have previously
thought that at all banks are basically the same, people are now
more ready than ever to change banks,” List said.
He added the ad creative would aim
to get across three messages: it does matter with whom you bank; it
matters that your money is safe; and the importance of a bank
having transparent and understandable financial solutions.
Social media
first
For Erste, the two marketing initiatives represent the bank’s
first experiment with social media.
“There is no ambient media where we
do not show the link to Erste on Facebook. We are targeting
Facebook users for the first time. For us now, that is a very
important media, the most important media for the future when you
look at growth rates,” List said.
List said that around 70% of its
customers aged 18 to 40 were regular Facebook users.
“We are not yet experts in social
media and for us this is just the beginning but in the first two
weeks after the Austria campaign launch, we had over 470 followers
join up on Facebook. We will watch the numbers of users and closely
monitor progress on a day-to-day basis. We will improve the
interactivity, increase our knowledge and use it more
extensively.
“It is a first try for us but I can see already that we have
made a solid start,” he said.
