NatWest makes MoneySense commitment with The&Partnership's swaggering ad debut
NatWest is talking up the value of pennies and pounds in its latest marketing campaign spotlighting the feel-good factor of being savvy with savings.
Emma Isaac, brand marketing director for NatWest, RBS, Ulster Bank and Coutts said the campaign evidences the brand's commitment to helping the public save, which is helping it build up trust in the long-run.
The first campaign delivered by The&Partnership since it won the account in October 2019, launches one day after the UK exits the European Union with a TV roadblock. As a time of political and economic uncertainty, NatWest is showing a young girl swaggering through a supermarket car park, proudly wielding a pound coin that she refuses to return to her father.
'Count the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves?' straplines the 40-second film, directed by Blink Films.
Isaac shrugs off the campaign's Brexit timing, "building people's financial confidence is probably relevant at any time of the year and at any stage in life, no matter what the context macro and micro." There is a longer-term play at work. The MoneySense programme has been touring schools to teach UK children aged 5-18 years how to feel "money confident" for the last 25 years.
Last year it reached more than one million children in schemes staffed by the bank's volunteers. It is also offering free resources to teachers and parents to help young people make good financial decisions.
The work is informed by research from the Money Advice Service that claims that young people’s attitudes to money are established by the age of seven. It added that only 43% of young people are confident about managing their money and 32% have no experience of putting money into a bank account.
Like the UK, NatWest and its satellite brands have been on a transformative journey since 2016 where it stepped back from the beleaguered RBS brand to focus on a rejuvenated NatWest.
"In 2016, we developed a really singular focus across our brands, and who they serve, so that we could create very distinctive personalities and very distinctive ways of talking to our customers that was the most relevant and the most motivating for them.
"We've been testing and learning along the way, and have built to a place we are confident we can engage and build trust."
A TV roadblock, kicks off the campaign, with ads against The Voice on ITV, Love Island Unseen Bits on ITV2, Hidden Figures on Channel 4, 3 Identical Strangers on More 4, Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 on E4 and Mission Impossible II on Sky One.
This will be followed by a press campaign and activity in cinema, out of home and more the next day to drive home its ‘We Are What We Do’ platform.
Isaac said: "Building trust is extremely important. This is why we take the attitude that we shouldn't just be talking about what we want to do, but showing what we are doing. This campaign evidences that."
It shows that we are authentically behind this and will "continue to build on what we've been doing for the last 25 years."
The campaign has been set up in a "really fresh, modern, distinct way". Following a TV and cinema launch, the brand is leaning heavily into digital with its film and will retarget those who engage with the work with greater detail about the MoneySense work.
Scored with 'This is how we do it' by Montell Jordan, the brand will also have a lot to play within the audio sphere.
Micky Tudor, executive creative director, of The&Partnership, London positioned the work to "bring a bit of joy, energy and swagger to what can often be a category that at times, can appear a little dull."