Nationwide
Digital • OOH • Social
Re-connecting the brand with purpose
Nationwide needed to recruit new members, specifically new current account members. However, the current account market is plagued with indolence. Hardly anyone switches the current account and the numbers had been getting worse every year.
At the heart of the problem was a lack of perceived difference. No matter how you feel about your current provider there is little point in switching if you think all of the alternatives are no different. As the the sole remaining, truly national Building Society, Nationwide is actually different the major banks it competes against. But most people, including many of Nationwide’s existing members, didn’t know, understand or feel the difference.
So we took Nationwide back to its roots. As a Building Society it was founded by ordinary people coming together to accomplish things they could not alone. It is a brand that is owned by and run for the people. Nationwide is its members, all 15 million of them.
But how do we dramatise this in our advertising? Bank advertising tends to be very slice of life: happy couples, moving boxes, pregnancy bumps, looking after little ones and friendly staff. Life, but not real life. In advertising, banks treated people like the Victorians treated their children: to be seen but rarely heard. In most category advertising, it is the voice of the bank that does all the talking. And when people are heard it often feels inauthentic and artificial. Life, but not as we know it.
The task:
Create advertising that stands apart through its unwavering commitment to representing the real lives of everyday people authentically
The solution:
Let people tell their own stories, don’t tell them for them
The idea:
Voices Nationwide
We gave spoken word poets a broad theme like home, friendship, family, or loyalty and asked them to write from their own personal life experiences, to film themselves performing their words and to send the films to us. We would select the best submissions, write end‐lines and make the film. The budget for each production was kept low. Partly because this would allow us to be more prolific and better represent the diversity of the nation’s voices. And partly because without the luxury of large production budgets, it forced us to keep things authentic, raw and unproduced.
The result was compelling, passionate, authentic voices from all across the nation telling the stories of what matters to them – articulately, honestly, with wit, and total integrity.
As clients in a heavily regulated sector, Nationwide had previously run creative that was diluted by its own internal compliance teams and sign-off structures. On winning the account, and in collaboration with their new marketing director, we developed a new approach of bringing creative work to market outside of the rigid hierarchy.
The new approach involves developing work quickly and cost effectively, this approach has meant that, to date, 52 different creative executions have been brought to TV. These new agile ways of working enabled us to create seasonal campaigns, for both conventional and non-conventional calendar events. Our Mother’s Day campaign was written, filmed and played out, all within 24 hours. No actors, no actresses, no artifice - just raw honesty and charm.
By stepping outside of the category comfort zone, the Voices campaign has helped Nationwide become the fastest growing Financial Institution in the country. As a result, Nationwide are opening more current accounts than ever before, not only recruiting more switchers than any of their competitors individually but the building society has gained more net switchers than all of the banks combined.
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