TD Canada Trust has its comfy green chair, but now the National Bank has rolled out the red carpet in a multimedia campaign that launched this week in Quebec and Ontario.
“We wanted to own this symbol and use it to communicate the personal relationship between the bank and its customer, all the while creating a strong link with the brand’s visual identity,” said Lise-Anne Amyot, senior manager, brand image, in a news release.
The campaign from Bos includes the television, newspaper and print ads in French and English, as well as point of sale materials, radio work, web banners and sponsorship executions.
The red carpet represents the bank’s new value proposition: good client care and superior service, said Martin Belanger, creative group head and a copywriter at Bos.
Belanger said the the focus customer service is not just in the advertising, but is something that the bank is implementing internally. “It’s more than a communications focus, it’s really a corporate stance,” he said.
In an English television ad, the red carpet rolls past various scenes (houses being sold, a young couple caring for their baby) and finishes by morphing into National’s logo.
“The bank wanted a completely new creative platform for 2012,” said Belanger, adding that the red carpet can be used with National’s multiple businesses – including insurance, mortgages, financial and investment products – as well as through all the points of contact.
Ken Wong, faculty member at Queen’s School of Business, said that the whole notion of personal attention has worked well for TD Canada Trust, RBC and the Bank of Nova Scotia, but there has to be substance behind the claim.
“What really underlies the success of those three examples is that it was more than a communications campaign. It was an organizational shift,” said Wong. “So that whatever promises the advertising campaign made, the bank was able to keep.”
