What you need to know:

• Eftpos is back in market after an 18 month brand advertising hiatus.
• It has launched a new brand identity and is touting broader fintech credentials, including an ID product alongside instant money transfer business, Beem It.
• Key target is "stressed" millennials hit hardest by Covid now looking to manage their money more astutely than buying now and paying later.
• Head of Brand and Marketing, Anthony Dumont, said brands have a duty to help Australians and the Australian economy recover responsibly post-pandemic.
• Also says marketers need to treat agencies with more respect, particularly when it comes to pitching.

Australian fintech business Eftpos is going after the millennial market as it launches a new brand identity and a deeper push into mobile and ecommerce.

It's aiming to leverage its investment in payments app Beem It, acquired last year from three of the big four banks, and serve a millennial market hit hard by Covid-related financial uncertainty.

While the firm ultimately plans to use the peer-to-peer payments app to move to everyday shopping, Head of Brand and Marketing, Anthony Dumont, thinks the time is ripe to help Australians manage their money responsibly, an approach which he hopes will also seed its ambition to become less of a "transactional" business, and more recognised as a fintech heavyweight.

Those aged 20-40 are the key demographic for Eftpos' socially responsible push.

"Millennials are now the most stressed generation going around," said Dumont. "They’ve experienced their first recession as adults, anxiety levels are high, property prices are moving out of reach and the job market is fractured."

Those challenges are acutely acutely as government support programmes come to an end.

Hence the brand, which paused most advertising activity over the last 18-months, now focusing on marketing products and services that champion "living and spending mindfully".

Squeezed middle

As part of its research into the new brand identity and campaign, Eftpos surveyed some 3,000 Australians. 

The results revealed a large segment of millennials are worried about how they will manage their finances amid the economic carnage wreaked by Covid.

Dumont thinks there is strong demand for those that can help people manage their money - rather than spend beyond their means.

"We're a use your own money business, which hasn't been impacted by the surge of the Afterpay's of the world, but we know from our research that there is still a lot of concern from millennials around their financial future," said Dumont.

"So as a brand we have to ensure we are seen to be doing actual social and economic good for those struggling."

As others, such as Telstra and Commbank have suggested, Dumont thinks Australian brands have a duty of economic patronage in rebuilding society - and believes those that fulfil that duty will be rewarded.

"After the pandemic exposed some of our over-reliances on international brands, there's been a real swing back to supporting Australian sovereignty from a consumer perspective," suggested Dumont.

"Now consumers are looking to local brands that can prove they are not only self-sufficient and able to contribute back to the Australian economy, but are also providing a service that really benefits consumers."

Going mobile

For its big push, Eftpos will run a national campaign with placements across screens, OOH, digital and social, with TV and radio to follow in coming months - though mobile is a key strategy, given the target audience and the brand's physical purpose, said Dumont.

The brand is currently in the "priming stage", which is about growing awareness around the new identity and offering, before Eftpos begins to launch some of its new tech products.

"Priming is how we get the audience ready for a conversation around changing behaviour and a key part of that will be outdoor, native work and investment into digital and social channels," Dumont said.

"But mobile will be critical to our strategy. It’s an area that we are looking to evolve our products around, so it makes sense that we would also invest our marketing budget into the corresponding channels."

Pitching: Respect due

Alongside a refreshed look and national campaign, Dumont and his team have also worked through a media and creative pitch, appointing Bohemia and Richards Rose respectively late last year.

Across the industry, Dumont thinks agencies are being treated poorly in the pitch process and thinks marketers and their agents would do well to aim for a degree of consistency in running them.

"It’s about finding the agencies that are willing to invest in those long-term relationships. We gave agencies plenty of time because too many pitches require very short turnarounds and we wanted to be clear that we weren’t having them pitch for the sake of it," Dumont said.

"There wasn’t going to be any change to the concept halfway through the process or anything like that, so the work that was submitted was what we were going to accept and then refine those successful submissions," he added.

"It's how pitches should be run."