The Australian Effie Awards Entry Form 2014 Entry Number: 110 1. Agency

Whybin\TBWA DAN Sydney

2. Advertiser 3. Entry Title

RaboDirect RaboDirect – Steal Back Your Dreams

4. Category for this Entry Long-term Effects 5. Author

Hristos Varouhas, Nitsa Lotus

6. Phone

02 8584 5500

7. Email

[email protected]

Directions appearing with each question must not to be deleted from the completed case; they serve as a guide for both entrants and judges. Complete entry form in - Type face: black font; 10pt minimum. All data must include a specific, verifiable source. Refer to the Effie “How to Enter” booklet for guidelines on properly sourcing your data. Data without a source will result in entry disqualification. Answer every question or indicate “not applicable” and define your target audience in the entry. Any unanswered question will result in entry disqualification. Executive Summary Please Attach the Executive Summary to the front of the entry so the judges can read this first. An Executive Summary of no more than 100 words is also required (not included in page count).

Over a four-year period, RaboDirect raised a staggering XXXX in deposited savings – that is, an annual average of XXXX baseline in 2009. All with just an average 2.1% annual share of voice (SOV) which pales in comparison to its source of business (Big Five Banks) who had a combined average annual SOV of 83%. To put this into context, RaboDirect outgrew the category at an average rate of 255%, when its competitors grew only 45% in the same period. This was an incredible result given nab launched its “break up” campaign just before RaboDirect launched its The Banks Are Stealing Your Dreams campaign in 2011 and, CBA launched its highest ever profile “Can” campaign with a staggering 43% SOV in 2012. These exceptional achievements were made possible by RaboDirect’s provocative advertising that jolted riskaverse savers into ‘stealing back their dreams (i.e. forgone interest) from the big greedy banks’. 8. Total Campaign Expenditure Include production and value of donated media and non-traditional paid media. Check one. $5 - 10 million. XXXXXXXXXX

9A. What was the strategic communications challenge?

What was going on in your category? Provide information on the category, marketplace, company, competitive environment, target audience and/or the product/service that created your challenge and your response to it.

Each year, RaboDirect set itself the objective of raising $2 billion in savings – an audacious challenge considering… 1. RaboDirect remained a small, relatively unknown fish in a very big pond.  RaboDirect had an average of XXXXX in media for each year – just 2.1% of the Finance category  The dominant brands being the ‘Big Five’ (CBA, nab, Westpac, ANZ, St. George) and ING DIRECT and Bankwest accounted for 83% of the Finance category’s annual SOV and equally as much in online search engine marketing (SEM) spend. (Sources: Adquest/Initiative Media) 2. Consumers’ preference for large, familiar, stable bank brands continued to grow as confidence was undermined.  In 2010 consumers ‘favoured conservative’ due to losses sustained during the global financial crisis (GFC).  In 2011 Australian media ‘created yet more fear’ off the back of the GFC by focusing on the sovereign debt woes of Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain as a segue into the euro currency’s potential demise.

The Australian Effie Awards Entry Form 2014  

In 2012, as the euro stabilised, the media turned to the United States’ ‘rush toward the fiscal cliff on 31 December and its potential catastrophic effects for worldwide markets’. (Source: www.news.com.au) This relentless ‘scare tactic’ resulted in consumer preference for big, stable, trusted brands – ‘flight to quality’. o Consumers’ preference for the ‘Big Five’ well-known savings institutions was vindicated further by the knowledge that their hard-earned savings were backed by the Australian Government Guarantee Scheme. (Source: www.rba.gov.au)

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In 2013, while consumer confidence increased, the Reserve Bank’s baseline interest rate decreased to historical lows, which made deposits a less attractive investment option. (Source: www.rba.com.au and Financial Review 30 October 2013)

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The above macroeconomic context, coupled with post-GFC regulatory reform dictating that Australian banks reduce their reliance on offshore wholesale funding, resulted in a ‘war on retail deposits’ – i.e. the Big Five banks consistently increased both their advertising of and interest rates for High Interest Savings Account (HISA) and term deposit accounts to attract more deposits. This resulted in a very tough environment for small players like RaboDirect.

3. ‘Sleeping giants’ reawakening to offer a credible alternative to the Big Five banks.  The well established ING DIRECT and Bankwest were the default choice for the few people wanting an alternative to the Big Five banks. (Source: TNS Brand Health Tracking 2010-12)  UBank was leveraging its parent (nab) brand’s clout to ‘buy’ market share through consistent market-leading rates on HISAs XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  As a reaction to their managed funds and leverage assets products losing investors, global giants like Citibank, Macquarie and AMP – previously not seemingly bothered with HISAs and TDs – ramped up their savings advertising in 2012 (as did other large local players, Suncorp and Bank of Queensland, which launched nationally). (Source: www.infochoice.com.au) 4. Many of those who had heard of RaboDirect still had a big question over ‘who they were’.  Total brand awareness (in the HISA category) for RaboDirect was just XX versus the Big Five’s average being XX, ING DIRECT’s being XX while Bankwest’s was XX. Deleted (Source: TNS Ad Tracker Annual Summary 2010, 2011, 2012) So in a nutshell, the strategic communications challenge year-on-year was to build RaboDirect’s credibility from a mostly unfamiliar option for depositing hard-earned savings into a genuine, credible alternative to the Big Five banks. All in an environment not conducive to risking your savings with a little known brand, especially when…  In 2011 RaboDirect launched only 8 weeks after one of the biggest players in the category (nab) had launched its highest profile “Break Up” campaign in recent memory; and  In 2012 CommBank launched an even bigger campaign "Can" with a SOV equivalent to 37% of category spend.

The Australian Effie Awards Entry Form 2014 9B. What were your objectives? State specific goals.

Your entry is expected to include compelling data including behavioural objectives and results. Only in rare instances are the judges likely to award an entry that only demonstrates attitudinal changes. Provide a % or # for all goals. If you do not have a specific type of objective (e.g. no quantifiable objectives), state this in the entry form and explain why and why the objectives you do have are significant and challenging in the context of your category, etc. You must provide benchmark and context for your goals versus year prior and in context of competitive landscape and category.

As a financial institution, RaboDirect lives and dies by the deposits it’s advertising helps raise. XXXXXXXXX. In the following four years that RaboDirect launched its ‘activate your lazy money’ positioning, the business objectives were as detailed below: Primary objectives 2010: raise XX in new-to-bank deposits XXXXX. 2011-2013: raise XX in new-to-bank deposits XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Secondary objectives 2010: Decrease the average online cost per acquisition (CPA) from XXXXXXXX 2011: Maintain the CPA at the new benchmark of XXXXX 2012: Decrease the CPA by a further 20% XXXX 2013: Maintain the CPA at the new benchmark of XXXXXXXXXX Tertiary objectives Given RaboDirect is an online bank, web visits and registrations are critical measures of success. The first two year’s targets were much higher than the last two years as these were maintenance years whereas the first two years were ‘relaunch/step-change’ years… Table below not for publication.

9C. What was your strategy – and how did you get there?

What was your strategy? Was it driven by a consumer insight or channel insight or marketplace / brand opportunity? Explain how it originated and how the strategy addressed the challenge.

RaboDirect’s communications strategy was comprised of four core pillars (each evolving from 2010-2012): Pillar 1. Identify RaboDirect’s source of growth - Graph to right not for publication. A category review of advertising for HISAs initially showed that RaboDirect could aim to grow its market share from other ‘challenger’ brands, such as ING DIRECT, Bankwest and UBank. However, further analysis identified the real opportunity as the Big Five banks plus ING DIRECT. This was because these players were using short term ‘honeymoon’ interest rates to lure unsuspecting savers who ‘set and forget’ their savings in accounts that – after a period of 8-12 weeks – reverted back down to a rate well below what they initially signed on to. Given one of RaboDirect’s core values is transparency (i.e. no sneaky T&Cs) it was decided that these Big Banks should be its key source of growth. Pillar 2. Articulate and quantify the core strategic insight The above analysis led RaboDirect to believe that consumers who were ‘setting and forgetting’ their savings in underperforming accounts with the Big Five must be forgoing a large amount of potential interest… In 2010 RaboDirect coined these underperforming savings funds ‘lazy money’. In 2011 RaboDirect quantified the lost potential interest from this ‘lazy money’ to the tune of $4.7 billion dollars. In 2012 and 2013 RaboDirect remeasured the lost potential interest from this ‘lazy money’ as $4 billion dollars – still sizeable enough to warrant RaboDirect continue with their ‘steal back your dreams’ campaign. (Source: TNS National Savings Survey 2011, 2012) Pillar 3. Tightly defining its target audience (and refining it based on year on year learnings) In 2010 RaboDirect defined its target audience as people over 40 years of age XXXXXX in their savings accounts with the

The Australian Effie Awards Entry Form 2014 Big Five banks. The reason 40 years of age was chosen was due to a deep dive into RaboDirect’s customer database, showing that people under 40yrs generally had less than XXX in their savings account – reason being, their aspirations and resulting cost of living were higher than their ability to diligently save for a goal. In 2011, RaboDirect (contrary to the findings from its 2010 customer analysis) refined its target audience XXXXXX. Reason being, post-2010 campaign analysis showed its 2010 targeting had resulted in 82% of the funds raised coming from just 18% of new customers XXXXXXXX. This was a precarious position given RaboDirect’s propensity to churn; data showed that customers with balances XXX XXX were more likely to move their money from one institution to another when savings rates changed than customers XXX. 

This refinement resulted in an average (new deposit) balance XXX – a much better outcome than in 2010; however, post2011 campaign analysis showed that new customers that were 25-30yrs had balances (on average) of less than $1,000 – this meant it was costing RaboDirect more to keep them there than the benefit received. So in 2012, in order to further attract customers who would be as rewarding to RaboDirect as it was to their savings, the target audience was further refined to people over 30yrs with XXXX in savings XXXXXX. This refined targeting strategy was applied again in 2013. Across each of the four years, RaboDirect underpinned its demographic analysis with a psychological tipping point that it wanted to trigger in its audience. This was articulated as: “Faaaaaarrk! I am soon to be/am in my forties but haven’t got much set aside for what’s coming up next in life – marriage, kids, first home, a decent family holiday, etc. I really should ramp up my savings.” By triggering this mindset RaboDirect would give its audience a ‘wake up call’ that they weren’t as far into their savings trajectory as they would have liked (to set themselves up for the not too distant future) and that the big banks were in part to blame. This in turn would get them to engage with RaboDirect online. Pillar 4. Refining its messaging strategy and tonality year on year (to ensure consumers broke their inertia) The above systematic analysis helped RaboDirect articulate its raison d’être – to help Australians activate their lazy money – a clear and insight-led positioning. In 2010 RaboDirect launched its Straight Talking Online Bank positioning using the messaging proposition ‘Don’t put off activating your lazy money any longer’. This resulted an incredibly effective campaign whose guiding idea (‘You wouldn’t accept laziness here so don’t accept it from your savings’) put the onus on the audience to act (i.e. stop being lazy with their savings and switch to RaboDirect). A small selection of campaign assets is shown to the right… In 2012 and 2013, RaboDirect rearticulated the messaging proposition (used in 2011) to be far sharper and harder hitting so that it couldn’t be ignored – ‘Leaving your hard-earned savings lazing around in an underperforming Big Five account is akin to wilfully allowing your potential interest to be stolen from you (i.e. not paid to you)’; and, shifted its tone from ‘respectfully making people aware’ to ‘provoking them in a way that was personal, challenging and brash’. It was this strategy that led to an incredibly distinct, effective and ownable big idea for RaboDirect… 9D. What was your big idea?

What was the idea that drove your effort? The idea should not be your execution or tagline. State in 25 WORDS OR LESS.

The longer you put off activating your lazy money, the longer the big banks will continue stealing your dreams (whatever they may be).

The Australian Effie Awards Entry Form 2014

9E. How did you bring the idea to life?

Describe and provide rationale for your communications strategy that brings the idea to life. Explain how your idea addresses your challenge. Describe the channels selected/why selected? How did your creative and media strategies work together? In not more than three A4 pages show sufficient creative examples to enable the judges to understand the campaign. These pages can be additional to the seven A4 page written entry.

In 2012, given RaboDirect’s ‘Steal back your dreams’ campaign had only been in market for four of the eight months post April 2011, the approach taken was to develop a second phase that not only refreshed the campaign but importantly dialled up its provocativeness, a key to inspiring Australian savers to break their inertia and switch to RaboDirect. Given RaboDirect’s small budget, every piece of communication had to both establish the idea (“The big banks and their low interest savings accounts are stealing your dreams”) and deliver a strong call to action (“Steal them back with a high interest savings account from RaboDirect”). The creative ‘vehicle’ that delivered and made this message provocative was an insidious banker (representing the Big Five) who was reaping the rewards of people’s hard-earned savings. He was purposely flippant and careless about whose dream he was living, which inspired a reaction in people. The essence of RaboDirect’s media strategy was to integrate the thought of dreams being stolen into mediums where our target audience would be considering their dream purchases. As such, contextual placements were critical. Hence television ads being aired during holiday- and renovation-related programmes; while in press and digital, contextually relevant executions were placed in motoring, fashion, life stage and renovation sections and media. Phase two of the ‘Steal back your dreams’ campaign launched in mainstream media on 15 April 2012 with advertising driving people to RaboDirect’s website where they could apply for a HISA. 

By combining RaboDirect’s competitive interest rate (note: it was not market leading as UBank’s rate was constantly the highest – source: www.ratecity.com.au) in with it’s strong ‘anti laziness’ belief, RaboDirect disrupted the convention of separating brand ads from retail ads. This made RaboDirect’s limited media budget work more efficiently than if the messages were delivered separately. Given RaboDirect’s small budget, the key principle that guided their channel selection was ‘everything that brands must sell, and everything that sells must brand’. That is, the aforementioned channels were chosen not just for their contextual flexibility but also for their proven ability to build the brand’s positioning while importantly generating quality leads and applications. The applications page on RaboDirect’s website was further optimised to make it simpler to apply. The new 2012 campaign launched with a 30sec TVC comprised of the ‘greedy banker’ stealing people’s holiday dreams (nice resort, relaxing by the pool, turndown service, rekindling relationship, etc.) followed by a strong call to action to ‘steal back your dreams with a high interest savings account from RaboDirect’. This was cut down into a series of 15sec TVCs that were topped and tailed in ad breaks to deliver greater response; imagery was leveraged in sections of newspapers that related to dreams, e.g. holidays, property, new cars, jewellery, fashion and the like. A small selection of the campaign’s assets is below…

The Australian Effie Awards Entry Form 2014

RaboDirect’s tagline – The Straight Talking Online Bank – captured its competitive and straight talking tone which, when coupled with the big idea, provocatively challenged people to not accept laziness from their savings any more. Given the success of the campaign in 2012 we continued the ‘greedy banker’ showing him in different scenarios stealing people’s dreams. Lastly, RaboDirect’s desire to break the category convention of interest rate trickery led them to be completely transparent about their tiered approach to interest rates vs. account balances (hence the longer copy in press) – something that 38% of respondents suggested was key to customer satisfaction. (Source: TNS Quantitative Segmentation Research 2011) 10. How do you know your campaign was successful? Detail why you consider your effort a success. Refer to your objectives (results must relate directly to your objectives in (8c) – restate them and provide results) and demonstrate how you met or exceeded those objectives using quantitative and behavioural metrics. Did your effort drive business? Did it drive awareness and consumer/business behaviour? Use charts and data whenever possible. Explain what x% means in your category. For confidential information proof of performance may be indexed if desired. Demonstrate the correlation between activity and outcomes. Make sure you address every objective, whether fully achieved or not. Indicate why the results you have are significant in the context of your category, competition and product / service.

Information and graphs from this section deleted

The Australian Effie Awards Entry Form 2014

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XXXXXXXXXXXXThis was a key outcome given the 2012 strategic communications challenge was for people to feel RaboDirect was a credible alternative to the Big Five banks for investing their hard-earned savings.

Perceptions of RaboDirect improved year on year with almost one in two people (47%) feeling that ‘RaboDirect is a brand that thinks differently’ and ‘brand stability’ continued to move upwards…

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Further evidence of this perceptual shift was that 97% of people reached felt the ‘insidious banker’ represented the big banks (not RaboDirect), enjoyment of the television ads was significantly above norms and, almost one in two (44%) understood the key message that “the major banks are not giving you good enough interest rates across their savings accounts”; trust and stability perceptions also increased significantly in 2012.

(Sources: RaboDirect Brand Tracking Reports by TNS 2010-2011 and Millward Brown 2012) In summary, the (aforementioned) significant increases in website visits, prospects captured, new customer registrations, and, most importantly, credibility as an alternative to the Big Five banks vindicated both RaboDirect’s refined targeting and more provocative messaging strategies for 2012. 11. Did it achieve a positive ROI? You need to convince the judges that the marketing investment provided a positive return – if that was a requirement. Indexing of data is acceptable. Your entry will not be ineligible if you don’t provide any data, but entries that do provide convincing evidence will gain additional marks. Profit margin on ROI is defined as / incremental sales less the campaign costs. (Note that this data can be excluded from the published case on request.) We recognise that, in some instances, a measurable financial return will not be an objective.

RaboDirect’s campaigns delivered an exceptional return on investment year on year but, due to the highly competitive and confidential nature of Financial Services, RaboDirect are not able to disclose any of this information, even in an indexed format. Consideration has been given to calculating this using industry benchmarks as published in KPMG 2013 Financial Institutions Performance Survey however due to the approximate nature this would largely provide an inaccurate picture which RaboDirect are not comfortable with.

The Australian Effie Awards Entry Form 2014 Given the actual ROI isn’t available, it seems appropriate to reference RaboDirect’s phenomenal incremental growth which exceeded the market’s growth by 255% - as a ratio, this is 6.7:1 times higher than market growth.

As the graph (above right) illustrates, RaboDirect’s cumulative growth rate (percentage change) in deposits from households continued its steep upward trajectory, significantly outstripping the Big Five banks during comparable campaign periods – this vindicated RaboDirect targeting the Big Five as its source of growth. Sources for the above results: RaboDirect, APRA Data – Australian Government ARF 320.0 Statement of Financial Position (Domestic Books) returns that banks submit to APRA under the Financial Sector (Collection of Data) Act 2001. Note: St. George included in Westpac. http://www.apra.gov.au/adi/Publications/Pages/monthly-banking-statistics.aspx

12. Convince us that the result was not due to other factors.

You must explain in your entry the effect of any other potentially relevant factors such as product changes, pricing changes, distribution changes, competitive activity, press coverage, economic conditions, weather etc. Advertising does not often work in isolation, but the judges need to be convinced that your campaign had a major impact on results. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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The 28% increase in spontaneous brand awareness is unprecedented in the Finance category where achieving a feat like this would require a challenger brand to outspend their competitors by at least three-to-one (source: Initiative Media and Eating The Big Fish by Adam Morgan) – which as the above figures attest did not happen. RaboDirect's rate strategy was to be ‘there or thereabouts’, not number one (buying market share). In 2011, Virgin Money re-launched with a 6.75% interest rate that was 0.35% higher than RaboDirect’s (a substantial difference in the fickle savings/deposits market). (Source: www.infochoice.com.au) In 2012, UBank (backed by nab) had an interest rate that consistently led the market throughout RaboDirect’s campaign period. (Sources: www.infochoice.com.au and www.ratecity.com.au) While RaboDirect’s customer deposits were covered by the Australian Government Guarantee Scheme; but due to media hype (in 2009 and 2010) surmising that the Big Five banks’ deposits were covered but not those of smaller Australian savings institutions, consumers were left with the impression that the government guarantee largely applied to just the Big Five banks – this in turn made it that much harder for RaboDirect to be considered a credible alternative for their savings.

The Reserve Bank of Australia dropped the national interest rate from 4.25% at the end of 2011 to just 3.25% in April 2012 (the onset of RaboDirect’s campaign) – this actually makes the business results even more impressive given the RBA’s falling rates decreased the appeal of HISAs as a category. (Sources: www.rba.gov.au, www.maquarie.com.au)

The Australian Effie Awards Entry Form 2014 In 2011 RaboDirect launched only 8 weeks after one of the biggest players in the category (nab) had launched its highest profile campaign (“we’re breaking up with the other major banks”) in recent memory, in 2012 CommBank launched an even bigger campaign "Can" with a SOV equivalent to 37% of category spend. The timing of CBA’s “Turning can’t into can” campaign couldn’t have been worse given RaboDirect had spent its annual production budget before CBA’s campaign launched on 20 May 2012, meaning RaboDirect couldn’t remake any of its creative to respond to CBA’s messaging. In any case, CBA’s campaign was very different (in sentiment, delivery and branding) from RaboDirect’s, so it could not have contributed in any way to RaboDirect’s success. Evidence for this is in the fact there was no misattribution of CBA’s campaign to RaboDirect. (Source: TNS Brand Tracking 2012). RaboDirect's brand health conversion ratios doubled from 2011 and coming into line with those of its source of growth (the big banks); only ING DIRECT was ahead (understandable given their – until recent – consistent use of advertising property Billy Connolly). Graph to right not for publication. Deleted

The Australian Effie Awards Entry Form 2014

The Australian Effie Awards Entry Form 2014