Beyond Resumes_ How Volunteering Shapes Career Trajectories by Kent Kubie
Nationwide Building Society - Less can be more! Case Study
1. The Meaningful Challenge:
With limited budgets Nationwide BS struggle to achieve a strong SOV in comparison to
the big bank competitors.
Our challenge
commute via mobile.
The big idea:
In line with the “disrupt” vertical of our strategy, and due to budget limitations, rather than
opt for an always on strategy, running small, less was to compete with the big banks,
ensuring Nationwide was put on the consideration list for more financial products, more
often, and fundamentally jolting people out of their inertia when it came to switching from
their incumbent Current Account provider.
We looked into the perceived hassle of switching, and how it often puts customers off
moving financial suppliers.
After analysing a range of competitors and related categories, we came up with a
"switching equation". Switching = brand trust + product benefits understanding + time
with audience. This led to a simple "Strengthen, Disrupt, Push" strategy.
"Strengthen" is driven by AV channels, and is about spending time with the sweetspot
audience to build brand trust.
"Disrupt" is about bombarding the audience across a condensed period of time to ensure
compelling product messages can't be missed. This strand meant moving to a heavy
weight TV laydown, deploying impactful press executions, as well as video/display whilst
ubiquity was also enhanced with a national 6 sheet.
"Push" is about finding moments of 'smart' boredom, when 'available' consumers can be
converted into customers. Eg: The Monday morning impactful formats, we opted for a
one off, early, and highly impactful execution to boldly launch Nationwide’s new Current
Account offer. This served to deliver the tangible product benefits in an impactful and un-
missable way, attempting to jolt consumers out of their inertia around switching their
current account provider.
We ran IFC spreads within core titles, which over index against our audience and offer
efficient CPTs, across two weekends.
The executions caused a stir within the industry and the executions have subsequently
been replicated by a number of Nationwide BS competitors, including RBS.
The results:
2. One of Nationwide’s most successful years in its 26 year history of offering current
accounts.
New accounts were opened every day and a record number of customers switched their
main banking relationship, up 58% on last year.