Thursday, May 28, 2009

On the other side - Westpac

Following a Tweet from @kenfreer this morning, I checked out Westpac's takeover of tvnz.co.nz today. After the BNZ post earlier this week, now lets talk about doing online well.

Today, Thursday 28th May, the National Government are announcing their first Budget. It is kinda a big deal because 
  1. It is National's first Budget where they get to tell us specifically that all the nice promises they made, like tax cuts, to get the country's vote, are not going to happen
  2. We all recognise that the world is not in the best financial state at the moment, so we're looking to the Government to ensure we are heading down a safe and (hopefully) right path
  3. In one way or another (even if not everyone realises it) this Budget will effect us all
So Westpac have made the most of this opportunity. Coverage of the Budget - specifically online since it is pretty much live - is going to be high and people are going to want to know what is going down as it happens. 

What (I think) they have done very well:
  • Selected a site which will have great access and coverage to information - and not just written, I would anticipate video as well.
  • Have worked their brand as strongly as possible - including wallpaper on the homepage and complete display buyout on Budget coverage. They are owning this space on TVNZ, there would be no confusion as to who is advertising
  • They have made their advertising relevant. As per the visual below, the banner advertising refers to the Budget (and the showcase later on talks about 'budgeting for all New Zealanders') this was planned and creatively executed together, it wasn't a matter of 'lets just put something there' which seems to happen a little bit in NZ.
So, well done Westpac, nice to see some serious thought being put into online campaigns (I am well aware that other organisations also plan,time and execute campaigns very well, but this is the nicest one which works the branding well) and I hope it works really hard for you - and I hope tvnz did you guys a seriously good deal. 

1 comment:

Sisyphus said...

It's something I hadn't thought about but using a branded background on a site is an effective way of getting to those of us who, having being annoyed too many times by ads that get in the way of browsing, have gone nuclear and blocked all ads. I like Westpac's, it's striking yet subtle in pushing the brand - let's see how long before it gets abused to the point where it starts getting blocked.