For me, this year, one outstanding, memorable ad I’ve seen or heard is the Standard Bank – What’s your next? ad. The first time I saw it was earlier this year, somewhere between April and May, I was visiting my brother In Pimville, Soweto, I think I was watching the 7pm news bulletin on eNCA. I was enthralled by the delivery and intonation of the female voice-over artist, it was very refreshing. Usually, corporate institutions use bold, older male voice-overs to deliver against their desired brand identity; solid and formal.
The Standard Bank was selling personalised banking. I think customisation is a good thing in banking, because we all bank differently, we also belong to different income groupings. In my view, the message does come across in the sixty-second ad, also; the line ‘…when you step up to your next […] siyakubongela mtana’m, usebenzile’ – followed by the cinematic showing a graduating lady stepping up to a podium, gasping to soak up the moment of her great achievement, leaves a sweet lingering taste.
I don’t bank with Standard Bank. Watching the ad also didn’t make me think that perhaps I should. I’m fine where I am. Emotive appeals are not sufficient for soliciting a purchase decision when changing banks. To entrust someone with your money, you need some guarantee that your money will be safe with them. This negotiation entails much more cognitive detail than what can be clustered in a sixty-second piece of cinematography.
Nonetheless, what the ad has achieved, in my view, is to uphold, at least two of the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout; the Law of Mind, and the Law of Perception. Now that I know Standard Bank is personal, as they claim, I am assured that if I ever decide to bank with them, I can hold them against it, so, in that sense, they have a share of top-of-mind when I think about banking – the Law of Mind.
Also, I’m with my bank because I think they’re better, however, in reality, I cannot substantiate why except that when I was a full-time student they asked me ‘how can we help you?’ I told them how and they did, if they so ever fail to deliver on that promise, there’s now an alternative I’m aware of, willing to consider, which promises a personal approach to banking; if they succeed in matching that claim overtime, and my current brand fails me consistently, then I will switch – the Law of Perception.
The reason I’m not thinking about switching banks is not that I’m happy with my current choice of bank. I distrust financial markets and institutions. I distrust them to the core. They are very expensive. In our country, like in many parts of the world, there are a few ‘big banks’. They are monopolistic in nature. They overcharge people for using their products.
Speaking about big banks, and their rent-seeking behaviour; which by definition means getting an income not as a reward for creating wealth but by grabbing a larger share of the wealth that would have been produced anyway, eminent US economist, Joseph Stiglitz, on the essay Standard Economics is Wrong. Inequality and Unearned Income Kills the Economy says that ‘banks deemed “too big to fail” enjoy a rent due to an implicit state guarantee.’
He adds ‘investors know that these large financial institutions can count, in effect, on a government guarantee, and thus they are willing to provide the funds at lower interest rates. These banks can thus prosper not because they are more efficient or provide better services but because they are in effect subsidised by taxpayers.’
This is not the only reason why large banks and bankers acquire mega returns. Stiglitz mentions anti-competitive practices in debit and credit cards and lack of transparency, for example, in ‘over-the-counter Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) and derivatives’.
Simply put, big banks take a lot of money from ordinary people, and they lie. They lie, a lot. Their lies are beautifully embellished, with nice imagery and poetic words. Lies, sometimes, are delicious, and as ordinary people we’re often malleable and we’re enticed, and drawn in by them. Like that Standard Bank ad, which claims to be personal, personal to my journey, to which they want to come along. Would I let them? Well, not today. I like this ad solely for the sentiment, it inspires vision, reminding me to not delay my next move in life.
