Banking campaigns notch up awards

By Helen Vause

It's prize-giving time for direct marketers and for the best direct marketing campaigns of the year.

The 1999 Direct Marketing Awards attracted more entries than ever and new categories acknowledged excellence in this maturing field of marketing. Direct marketing campaigns for banks scooped the pool.

Aim Direct and Colenso Communications took the RSVP Grand Prix Award for the best overall campaign with their launch of the GlobalPlus credit card.

Valerie Walshe, marketing manager and acting general manager of BankDirect, was named Direct Marketer of the Year as the woman driving the success of New Zealand's first telephone and internet banking service.

The GlobalPlus launch was the biggest direct marketing campaign even undertaken in this country, says Aim Direct managing director Sharon Henderson. A year after its launch, she says it has attracted more new customers than any other credit card launch over the same timeframe.

The GlobalPlus credit card was launched from the Mastercard brand. The three strategic partners, BNZ, Air New Zealand and Telecom, created a unique new card product - an all-in-one credit card, airpoints card and telephone calling card.

"We focused on the air points component," she says. "Research showed that people are driven by rewards and that you can drive behaviour when you offer the right rewards. People love airpoints and we have targeted that in the launch of this card."

The direct marketing campaign focused on the market segments of each of the three partners, with carefully tailored messages for each different segment. For the BNZ it was their biggest direct marketing campaign in many years.

Says Sharon Henderson: "It was the most successful launch that Mastercard has ever been involved in. It is an old brand that has been re-established after being overshadowed by Visa."

For Aim Direct, it was the second year the agency has been behind the best overall campaign.

Valerie Walshe is the first woman to be named Direct Marketer of the Year and the first winner from the client sector - past awards have gone to direct marketing agencies. When BankDirect launched two years ago there was a double agenda to the direct marketing strategy: to build a brand and to entice people into e-commerce, says Valerie Walshe.

"We had come out of nowhere and we were asking people to send us their money."

The target market for BankDirect is the 25 to 45-year-old high-income professional who is comfortable with technology and quite secure in using it. It's a target market with high expectations of a new proposition in banking and a market that demands delivery to meet the promises.

BankDirect has achieved this by using the internet and other channels to create seamless management of customer relationships, says Valerie Walshe.

A year after launching, BankDirect replaced its call centre system with an internet-oriented system aimed to speed up transaction, capture customer data, give more flexibility and reduce telephone time. All customer contacts originating from the web are automatically recorded against a customer data base and simultaneously added to the account managers' call queue. This means that within minutes an account manager can be calling a potential or exisiting customer.

"That speed of action invariably blows people away and has been a very successful part of our marketing approach," she says. The on-line upgrade to the bank's system has brought other advantages, too. It gives the bank a bigger picture of customers to enable better targeting while improving customer satisfaction. It also saves on double-keying information, it saves on telephone time with customers. Only 30 per cent of brochures now go out by mail and the turnaround of applications has been speeded up, thereby increasing conversion rates of bringing in revenue. With loan applications customers can now log in to track the status of their application and can interact online to speed up the procress.

Valerie Walshe says research shows that the bank's customers are those who are "pulled" in to this new banking service because they are attracted to it rather than defecting from other banks that they are dissatisfied with. A survey of the bank's customers show that 95 per cent would recommend the new bank to others.

"For our customers, service can mean being able to do it yourself and do it very quickly. Our systems and marketing strategies are an evolving thing."

She says the bank listens to the expectations of customers to learn and refine its operation.

"The web is supposed to be an inexpensive medium. We are working towards maximising the very cost-effective opportunities it brings to give customers more control, more flexibility and more of what they want."

Bank Direct's revamped systems also earned it the Direct Marketing Association's new Nexus Award. This award recognises excellence in the use and provision of products, services and processes to direct marketing. It is also an accolade for those who have developed new tools or made the best use of interactive personal communication

This year the DMA offered a scholarship in recognition of creative talent. The inaugural winners were a Saatchi & Saatchi creative team - copywriter Nick Ward and art director Stephen Reid. The pair will spend two weeks in London at a top DM agency.

* Other winners for campaign excellence were: Best Copy, Aim Direct (BNZ Mystery Creek Fielday campaign); Best Art Direction, Rainger Direct (Clear Communications Clear First campaign); Best Creative, Aim Direct (3M Healthcare Nexcare 1998 campaign); Most Cost Effective Campaign, Robbins Brandt Richter (Diners Club International Sweet Reward campaign): Best Use of a Database, Aim Direct/Colenso Communication (Bank of New Zealand Credit Cards' GlobalPlus launch); Most Innovative Campaign, Aim Direct (BNZ Rural Retailer's fence post campaign): Best Strategic Campaign, Marketing Impact (Cement & Concrete Association of New Zealand); Best Integrated Campaign, Gestro Horne Advertising (Glaxo Wellcome New Zealand's Flixotide campaign); Best Creative, Rainger Direct (Clear Communications' Clear First campaign).