The Aotearoa Effie Awards, run by the Commercial Communications Council, celebrate campaigns that not only capture the hearts and minds of the audience but also achieve tangible results in terms of brand growth and market impact. Here we delve into the 2023 Grand Effie Award-winning work ‘This is Kiwi’, led by Special for Kiwibank, and shed light on the strategies, challenges, and outcomes that made this platform shine.
If anyone were to inquire about a typical month at NZ Marketing, it would more often than not, involve some sort of communication with Special, about the agency’s most recent accolades and accomplishments.
Therefore, it was not unexpected to learn that Special achieved the highest honour at the 2023 Aotearoa Effie Awards, marking another remarkable achievement. It was also unsurprising that when this high-achieving agency collaborated with one of New Zealand’s finest marketers, and winner of the 2023 TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards Marketer of the Year, Simon Hoffman, something exceptional might happen.
The platform ‘This is Kiwi’ was founded on the recognition that because New Zealand’s banking landscape was dominated by the ‘Big Four’ Australian-owned banks, Kiwibank needed to be positioned to face the future.
To achieve this repositioning, ‘This is Kiwi’ needed to send a clear message to New Zealanders that this was a Kiwi-owned and operated bank working for them.
Previously telling NZ Marketing that he is competitive by nature, Simon thrived on the challenge of taking on these Australian banks and trusted his team to develop products that demonstrated this.
“Special provoked us to think bigger and really challenge some of the deeply ingrained perceptions which is where the journey of reframing Kiwi to reframe Kiwibank began and the ‘This is Kiwi’ platform was born from,” Simon says.
“This was the catalyst and the scale and scope of the ‘how’ really grew from there as did our ambition. We worked with Thoughtfull to develop the transformation of the brand through our identity and propositions and our long-standing media partner OMD pushed us on media innovation and technology. When you have a fraction of the budget of your competitors, efficiency and effectiveness is everything and our partners really shared the same mindset.”
He adds that it’s uncommon to get the chance to reimagine almost every touchpoint in a bank, so he and the team made sure to ask lots of questions and ask those who had done it before as well as creating an environment where “diversity of thought” was encouraged and welcomed.
Effie judges commended the platform for successfully implementing change across the organisation, building a brand both internally and externally.
“The cohesive idea permeated all touchpoints, including design, stores, and uniforms, resulting in undeniable consistency and impact,” they said.
Rory Gallery, Special’s Chief Strategy Officer, says one thing that stood Kiwibank in good stead was that it △ wasn’t suffering from a likeability problem in the same way other banks were. Instead Kiwibank was lacking in the credibility department.
Since it was already well-liked, the brand needed to strengthen its reputation and be seen as an expert in the financial industry. ‘This is Kiwi’ needed to redefine the bank’s identity, and demonstrate its ability to meet the specific needs of key target audiences, particularly homeowners and the business community.
“What’s really interesting for me about Kiwibank is that it’s a real story of doing brand fundamentals really well,” says Rory.
“The entire industry will have sat in presentations in the last six or seven years, and listened to the best of the marketing effectiveness experts in the world tell us about how we should go about marketing communications; long-term brand idea, distinctive assets, looking at increasing your share of voice versus the competition, there’s lots of these kind of effectiveness principles that we not only were encouraged to use, but also have been proven to work.”
The trick, says Rory, is applying this knowledge. “I think the formula’s actually, ironically, there for everyone to use. Long-term, consistent brand platforms have proven time and time again to work. Our most successful work is built on identifying a strategy, sticking to it, and being really consistent with it and how it shows up in the world. But it feels like there’s still not many examples of brands using or employing that strategy consistently in New Zealand.”
According to Rory, the formula for success is not a secret, or based on luck, but rather a set of well-established marketing principles, and Kiwibank’s success lies in applying these principles consistently and steadfastly, creating a powerful and enduring brand platform.
Having worked with Kiwibank for a competitive pitch.
“The thinking behind it was that, we [Kiwibank] lacked expertise and relevancy and we wanted to be seen as a much more credible and relevant modern-day bank.”
The concept was not to reflect the traditional Kiwiana associations but to showcase a modern New Zealand, aligning the bank with the innovative spirit, outward worldview, and confidence of the people.
Products such as Co-Own, which allows you to purchase a house with a friend, spoke to the current challenges Kiwis are facing when trying to get on the property ladder and “tapped into the idea of us understanding that modern New Zealand cannot necessarily afford to buy their own first home”.
This was also a nod to fairness and egalitarianism, two concepts that aligned well with the brand’s values.
The phrase ‘This is Kiwi’ was an early line to come out of the project and Rory says it ended up sticking as “it felt like it really tapped into what the bank needed to do, which was show up in a much more progressive and relevant way”.
“By associating itself with modern New Zealand, and then also having products that backed up that Kiwibank was much more modern and progressive, it helped us to clearly realise that it spoke to the attitude we wanted to take and show up with, but also our actual offering.”
The research also showed that the line worked really well and gave both Special and Kiwibank confidence
that the platform was heading in the right direction.
Despite its success, the campaign was not without its challenges. As it was created in the midst of the Covid pandemic, the work originally was intended to be launched much earlier, but the campaign was delayed due to the lockdown New Zealand was plunged into in August 2021, which changed everything.
“The interesting thing about it was that we had developed work when the mood of the nation was slightly different. We had to go through a piece of interrogation around our work to ensure that that was still right and would stand the test of time,” Rory says.
But this bump in the road actually made the platform stronger as it became relevant “irrespective of
the times”.
“It was a challenge at the time as we were creating a platform where literally the mood of the nation had completely swung but, at the same time, it’s given us confidence going forward.”
Simon agrees. “Working through some of the bigger decisions during lock down (for example we landed the new identity and shot the hero ‘This is Kiwi’ film from our homes) played a big part of the success – it forced us to work and think in a different way which we have carried forward. And ironically, it brought us closer together,” he adds.
Rory says this type of work comes with many other challenges, but something he’s coming to love is that by the time all the structural work is put in place when developing a long-term brand platform, and once it’s out in the world, “they seem to stick because people can really see their benefit and usually quite quickly”.
He says another key part of creating a successful and effective platform such as ‘This is Kiwi’ is having a close working relationship with the client and an open and collaborative dialogue.
“We all sit down pretty regularly and have good open forums, which honestly feel like conversations as opposed to presentations. I feel like there’s a good working group steering committee of sorts between ourselves, Kiwibank, OMD, and TRA as well.”
One thing Rory stresses is that although Special won this particular award and is credited in this instance for its efforts in building this platform, its effectiveness is very much a result of an ‘agency village’ as he calls it.
“Ultimately, this is about combining a bunch of really good fundamentals with some really great work by the Kiwibank team, including their product work, as well as some really incredible media thinking from OMD. It feels to me like a very good example of strategic fundamentals combined with really good teamwork from the agency village.
“I like the fact that a lot of little things have added up to make a
big difference, as opposed to it being one highlight thing. The thing I’m most proud of is that I feel like it’s nearly a best-practice example of creating a really good brand platform where everyone played a big part in helping to make sure that it was a success.”
This article was first published in our December/January 2023/2024 issue.
