KEY POINTS:
ASB's "Goldstein" advertisements remain the most recognised, but the Bank of New Zealand's pigs have passed the National Bank's black horse to take second place, according to the latest Nielsen Consumer Finance Monitor.
Thanks to Goldstein, 48 per cent of respondents were aware of having seen an ASB ad in the month before they were surveyed.
ASB marketing director Jonathan Symons said the advertising results confirmed the popularity of the Goldstein campaign.
He rejected advertising industry rumours that ASB was considering dropping the campaign and said there were at least two commercials that had not yet played.
"We get a mixture of good feedback and not so good," Symons said.
"The research is tracking well and we are happy."
Headline figures supplied by the research company showed that the BNZ "pigs" campaign has steadily increased awareness over the past three quarters with about 34 per cent of respondents aware of seeing a recent advertisement.
The advertising figures are just a small part of the monitor but they are closely watched in the banks - an advertising sector which faces struggles to get people to change accounts from one to another.
The National Bank advertising - which features the black horse - dropped from third to second place though Nielsen did not release awareness figures for its advertising.
National Bank owners ANZ might be relieved by the horse's falling fortunes.
It will have to stop using the horse in a few years because the logo is owned by Lloyds bank in the UK.
The director of Massey University's centre for banking studies, David Tripe, said that on past research about 6 per cent of customers were unhappy with their banks but only a small percentage actually changed.
Tripe said that the difficulty in convincing customers to switch banks was partly due to financial ties such as mortgages that were costly to sever.
Customers were convinced to stick with the devil they knew.
He said the Nielsen Consumer Finance Monitor revealed the impact of customers "testing" newcomer Kiwibank by giving it part of their banking business, possibly while considering making it their main bank.
The monitor compares how many people use banks as their main banker and how many use them for a small amount of business.
Of Kiwibank's customers, 67 per cent use it as their main banker - the second lowest of the banks.
The percentage for most other banks ranged from 74 per cent to 78 per cent.
Apart from advertising, the monitor found that among the 2500 respondents the bank that elicited the greatest recall was Westpac Bank on 65 per cent, 1 per cent ahead of ANZ.
The monitor found ASB and Westpac tied as the favourite bank.
The popularity of other banks remained steady though Kiwibank increased its upward trend increasing its share of people for whom it was their main bank from 5 per cent to 6 per cent.
The annual Nielsen monitor is paid for by banks and provides the main currency for banks to assess consumer behaviour.
Bank loyalty
The percentage of each bank's customers who use it as their main bank:
* Westpac 78 per cent
* National 77 per cent
* ASB 76 per cent
* ANZ 74 per cent
* Kiwibank 67 per cent
* BNZ 57 per cent
