By Gareth Vaughan
Money spent on advertising by the country's banks rose 11% to NZ$105.677 million last year with a big spend up by ANZ New Zealand on its ANZ brand whilst it slashed spending on its National Bank brand.
Based on Nielsen AIS base rate card data, ANZ advertising spend surged 108% year-on-year to NZ$30.342 million, meaning money spent on the ANZ brand - in a year when ANZ sponsored the Rugby World Cup - comprised 29% of total bank spend. In contrast the National Bank, the ANZ's sister bank, saw its advertising spend dive 74% year-on-year to just NZ$4.292 million meaning just 4% of bank ad spent was splashed out on the National Bank brand.
Apart from being an official sponsor of the September-October Rugby World Cup, which ANZ NZ's head of marketing Mike Cunnington maintains helped win ANZ new customers, ANZ also brought its first global brand campaign to New Zealand last year. This features television ads with Australian actor Simon Baker in character as Patrick Jane from television show The Mentalist.
The most visible National Bank advertising in 2011 was the For the places you'll go campaign as ANZ NZ reviews its ongoing use of the National Bank brand. ANZ NZ CEO David Hisco most recently said this review has been "parked" whilst the group's management works through its options for when it has to "surrender" the black horse on a green and white background used as the National Bank's logo to Britain's Lloyds.
The ANZ Banking Group bought National Bank from Lloyds in October 2003 for A$4.915 billion, excluding a dividend paid to Lloyds of NZ$575 million from National Bank's retained earnings, and retained both the ANZ and National Bank brands and branch networks. In 2010 ANZ renewed its rights to use the Lloyds black horse on a green and white background as the National Bank logo until the end of 2014. Staff from the two banks are currently being shifted from two to one IT (information technology) platform.
National Bank the top ad spender in 2008 & 2010
In both 2008 and again in 2010 more money was spent advertising the National Bank brand than any of the other banks. In 2008 NZ$17.585 million, or 22%, of bank advertising spend went on the National Bank and NZ$16.713 million, or 18%, in 2010. In 2009 Westpac outspent its rivals, coughing up NZ$14.207 million compared with the second placed National Bank's NZ$10.806 million for 15% of the total compared with Westpac's 19%.
Meanwhile, the second biggest advertising spender in 2011 was ASB with its spending rising 48% year-on-year to NZ$23.065 million, meaning it accounted for 22% of bank spend. ASB launched a high profile new marketing campaign entitled Creating Futures in late 2010 in place of its Ira Goldstein adverts that ran for 11 years.
Third was Westpac, whose ad spending rose 14% year-on-year to NZ$14.173 million giving it 13% of total big bank spend. Fourth was the BNZ where spending rose 9% year-on-year to NZ$9.726 million giving it 9% share. Fifth was Kiwibank, which was the only one of the major banks aside from National Bank, where spending on advertising fell last year. Kiwibank's spending fell 11% year-on-year to NZ$7.756 million giving the state owned bank 7% share.
The big banks - ANZ, National Bank, ASB, BNZ, Westpac and Kiwibank - comprised NZ$89.354 million of the total NZ$105.677 million spent on advertising by banks last year. The Nielsen AIS figures don't break out which banks spent the remaining NZ$16.323 million but it's likely to be split between the likes of Rabobank, TSB Bank, HSBC, the Co-operative Bank (formerly PSIS), and SBS Bank.
The total amount of money spent on advertising by the banks in 2011 was up NZ$10.499 million from 2010's NZ$95.178 million, which in turn was up NZ$22.045 million from 2009's NZ$73.133 million, which was down NZ$5.463 million from NZ$78.596 million in 2008, the Nielsen AIS figures show.
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