The Banks Must Be Crazy

Do you believe the recent ads for St.George? Do you believe those for NAB?

Q1: Do you believe St.George is a much better bank than the others?

Q2: Do you believe NAB has really reduced is prices below the other banks

Are either bank convincing you?

I've closed St.George accounts three times in the past 35 years - one time was when I went in with a $70,000 cheque I was ready to deposit... until I faced off with a branch manager who represented the typical arrogance of Australian Banks.

So it REALLY irks me to see these latest St.George Bank ads saying how they are 'different'.

They're owned by Westpac and their high net worth clients - the customers they actually MAKE money from, all know it.

And NAB, for years I was burdened with extraordinary fees and penalties, sometimes for anomalies I had previously come to expect for free from the Commonwealth (prior to privatisation, of course).

As a major shareholder of these banks, not that I am one, I'd be removing strategic authority from my internal marketing people - they just don't 'get it'.

Because you research says everyone thinks banks are bad and charge too much fees, and are just not nice, doesn’t mean you can change their minds by buying a chunk of advertising with outright fabrication of the contrary.

Good Marketing Strategy

A good marketing strategy would be to assess where you are deriving your profits who are the consumers that are effected by negative brand loyalty and what would they believe and accept - certainly not that B+NAB has just decided to reduce its profits to be good guys or St.George has nothing bad that its customers can recall - PLEASE!!!

A good marketing strategy would be to identify all the market segments with the market, specifically the attractive ones, and build products that truly attract custom.

A good marketing strategy would be to take their over abundant advertising budget and put is into a philanthropic effort (too many to choose from to suggest for this blog piec) and enjoy the publicity for doing something that it truly and honestly good for someone other than the bank.

Bad, weak, mindless, mundane, unintelligent marketing is spending too much on advertising when good marketing leadership is what is required.

The Banks will, at some stage, have to remember that there are 8 P's of marketing, not just Promotions and Politics.

See: http://bit.ly/MktgDef