Well, here’s a bit of a good news. Advertising had paid off for one bank at least. Commonwealth Bank is cheering their agency of record, Goodby Silverstein. Against all odds and Australian industry complaints, the bank handed their account to the U.S. agency and looks as though it’s paid off.
Marketing Director for the Australian bank Mark Buckman has said that brand awareness due to the campaign has shot from 70 per cent a year ago to 95 per cent today. For the last 16 months, the bank has seen a substantial growth in deposit books. Catch this – “the bank had hedged against movements in the Australian dollar so it could continue to have its ads made by Goodby.” Now, that’s love.
The campaign centered around a fictional US advertising agency coming to terms with the down under culture. The spot above even features action director Michael Bay in cameo.
“We were sick to death of being told what we couldn’t do. While everyone here has since given us their point of view about our advertising, we couldn’t find an advertising agency in Australia that was prepared to think differently about us,” said Buckman.
Listen, it’s bad news for the US everywhere. It’s nice to see that America is still exporting something and getting some fricking props for it. Hoorah!