Why banks are appealing to taggers

Photo / Richard Robinson.

Scrawled across the low, curving concrete wall that borders the motorway on-ramp near the ferry terminal is a word that I would never have expected to see rendered in graffiti form.

But there it is: 'Kiwibank'.

What sort of self-respecting tagger would waste their spray-can on daubing the name of a financial institution by an on-ramp?

It is possible the street artist was busted before completing the message - was it to be 'I H8 Kiwibank' or 'Kiwibank 4 Eva' ? We may never know. But it seems to me this is a great step forward in financial literacy.

The other possibility is that Kiwibank's advertising budget has been cut dramatically.

It's not a bad 'viral marketing' idea. And the graffiti is strategically placed just past the Westpac Stadium in Wellington.

Perhaps in anticipation of the landmark ruling against Westpac this week, some Kiwibank marketing guru saw a 'positioning' opportunity.

In a 200 plus page judgement that almost no-one will read, Westpac was found guilty of tax-avoidance and will have to stump up for a bill approaching $1 billion.

Unless it appeals. And the consensus is - at least in the room I was in when the news broke - that Westpac, as BNZ has done already after losing a similar case earlier this year, will appeal.

Why not? With $1 billion at stake, what's a few million more for the lawyers?

The bank can surely recoup these costs somewhere else. And if Westpac would rather not squeeze a little more out of its customers, I know where it can save on marketing.

 

David Chaplin

 

 

Photo: Richard Robinson