Success Story
The challenge
Bank Australia is a 100% customer owned bank focused on ethical, sustainable banking that makes a difference. They have over 125,000 customers, $4 billion in assets, 24 branches and 3,000+ ATMs.
In 2015 they set a target – to become Australia’s leading customer owned responsible bank and have the predominant market share of the socially aware customer values segment, namely the Leading Lifestyles and Metrotech Helix Communities who represent over 50% of total banking value.
The solution
We started by analysing Bank Australia’s customer database against Helix Personas to reveal the Personas of their existing customers and understand their current position with the target market. This allowed the Bank to establish KPI’s for their marketing activity and measure their ongoing performance.
Bank Australia’s Customer Base
To gain a thorough understanding of their target market, Bank Australia used Helix Personas to identify the media preferences, lifestyles, values, attitudes and interests of their key Helix Personas.
Using these insights they were able to:
- Build brand awareness by ensuring their media strategy reflected the media consumption habits of the target market.
- Produce advertising campaigns that resonated with their target Helix Personas. To test this, the Bank ran three campaigns across a one year period with varying brand and product messages, all targeted at their socially aware target audience.
Campaign 1:
The first campaign appeals to the Metrotech Helix Community who are high earners, typically renting and at the stage in life where they are ready to start looking into home ownership.
It also appeals to Leading Lifestyle Helix Communities such as 107 Humanitarians, who are relatively high earners, smart with their money and look to invest in shares and property.
Campaign 2:
The messaging of Campaign 2 appeals again to the Metrotech Helix Community, who are genuinely concerned about global issues such as climate change, human rights and education standards.
It appeals to many of the Leading Lifestyle Helix Communities such as 106 Worldly and Wise, who are socially conscious and charitable, 101 Bluechip who are charitable and community-minded about issues of most importance and 108 Successful Bureaucrats who are environmentally conscious.
Campaign 3:
The 3rd campaign appeals to the socially aware Helix Persona on two levels.
The product features appeal to Helix Personas like 103 Self-made Lifestylers who place high value on saving their earnings and 104 Status Matters who value good deals, as well as 207 Urban Entertainers and 210 Quiet Achievers who are often saving either for a mortgage or for their futures.
The messaging around supporting Independent arts will appeal to a large range of Helix Personas within the target market who are cultured, interested in the arts and have enough disposable income to attend theatre productions and other types of performances.
The results
At the end of the campaign period, Bank Australia had seen a 4.6% increase in the number of new customers from the Metrotech and Leading Lifestyle Helix Communities.
These two Helix Communities represent 23% and 32% of the banking value growth for Bank Australia respectively over this period, amounting to over 50% of the total banking value growth.
Bank Australia also used Helix Personas to inform their decision around the acquisition of Intech Bank in 2016. Analysis showed that Intech Bank’s customer base skewed highly towards the target Helix Personas, and so would increase Bank Australia’s market share of the Socially Aware market segment.