What you need to know:

• Bank Australia rebranded and repositioned in 2015 to “clean money”, aimed at tapping environmentally and socially progressive consumers.
• It doesn’t, for example, let its money or its customers' money, touch fossil fuel investments, gambling or live animal exports.
• New customers have doubled since the repositioning and each of them are referring an average of 11 people to the bank. 
• The average age of Bank Australia customers is dropping fast – in 2018 it was 44. Today it's 35. 

Walk versus talk

Many would have heard ‘Virtual’ Professor Mark Ritson reasonably rail against a barrel of misguided marketing misdemeanours – and “brand purpose" is one of them. 

‘Moronic’, ‘a joke’ and ‘bullshit’ are among some of the more palatable descriptors that Ritson has exhaled in recent years over companies “messing around with societal things” like brand purpose. And he does have a valid point or three to make.  

But the Head of Marketing at Bank Australia, with its roots going back 50 years to a building society for CSIRO scientists, is having none of Ritson’s rhetorical rampage on companies who align themselves to a higher cause or purpose.

Nicole Hunter says customers are pouring into Bank Australia based on its “clean money” positioning it launched in 2017. 

Never heard of Bank Australia? Hunter and her team are working on it. 

Rebranded Bank Australia in 2015 after an amalgamation of dozens of credit unions and building societies that ultimately started in 1957 with CSIRO scientists, it has impeccable pedigree to tap rising public awareness and concern over climate change, fossil fuel use and social tolerance. It’s a kind of “Woke Bank”. 

The sceptics argue consumers say more than they do on social and environment issues – but Bank Australia is growing.

With about 170,000 customers, it has nothing on the size of the big four or even regional brands like St George and Bank Of Melbourne. 

But Bank Australia is unapologetically plying the positioning of purpose. It is B-Corp certified, which means Bank Australia is legally bound by its company articles to deliver for shareholders, society and the environment, not just shareholders. Bank Australia doesn’t, for example, let its money or its customers' money, touch fossil fuel investments, gambling or live animal exports.

Since it launched its clean money strategy in 2017, Bank Australia has doubled its customer base. The 2019-20 summer bushfires and the Banking Royal Commission saw another surge of interest and perhaps most interestingly, the average age of Bank Australia customers is dropping fast. 

“We know it’s working,” says Hunter, who with creative agency Common Ventures has just launched a new ad campaign led by out of home and online using customers to tell their stories of environmental and social empathy – and why they switched to Bank Australia. 

“Mark Ritson can say what he likes,” says Hunter. “We know the vast majority of customers who join us are primarily joining to align their banking to their values. About 90% of our customers are joining for our brand promise. Or they were attracted by the ethics of our operations or were specifically wanting to divest their money out of fossil fuels.”   

Moving money

She says 66% of Bank Australia customers are referring the bank to about 11 people – “they’re doing an amazing job of advocating for us as a bank”. For new customers, the advocacy figure rises to 90%. “Australia’s bushfire season saw a record number of customers sign up,” says Hunter. “That just shows how a purpose-driven future is important and how concerned people are by what’s happening due to issues like the climate crisis. People are actually taking more action to save and change the world. People are trying to align their values with their actions more and more in their everyday behaviours.”

Bank Australia has also noted a fast and dramatic shift in the age of new customers – in 2018 the average age of a Bank Australia account holder was 44. Hunter says in the past two months the bank has signed-up 5,000 new customers and 75% of them were under 35. She points to Roy Morgan’s database of 10 million consumers who describe themselves as socially progressive for the baseline volume of Bank Australia prospects.   

The new advertising campaign – it’s fourth since rebranding in 2015 – is aimed at building awareness for its positioning and propel more high-advocacy customers to keep spreading the word. 

“This campaign for us is really about amplifying the reach of customer advocacy,” says Hunter. “It’s a really passionate customer base. We don’t feel we compete as much with the big four. We’re a very different alternative. Obviously the market at the moment is very competitive and everyone is leading with interest rate advertising.”

Common Ventures creative director Jane Burhop says the partnership with Bank Australia now also has the agency looking at B-Corp certification. 

“We’re ten years old and we’ve made a massive shift in that past decade of finding clients and partners like Bank Australia that are more closely aligned with our values,” says Burhop.

“What we found coming from the likes of the big global agencies is that they’re working on soft drinks and marketing to teenagers," she suggests. "There was not much vigour or passion behind that but then we started to realise that maybe these new areas of environmental and social enterprise are the sort of creative outputs we want to be aligning our business with. It gives us a reason to get out of bed in the morning – that you’re contributing to fixing some problems that sometimes seem to be outside our realm of control.”   

View the new Bank Australia ads here:

The campaign can be viewed here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BBrR6Zhi3M&t=1s

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v59vmqCCG80

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDpHP4M-Frs&t=1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6n9ACeapOg