Nationwide had positioned itself outside the banking category and was becoming increasingly irrelevant to people’s banking needs. A pleasant brand, it was easy to miss and passive. Radical change, to be bolder & braver, was needed. In our new campaign Nationwide is a genuine alternative to the big banks. Dominic West is a stereotypical boss of a fictional rival bank, enthralled to shareholders and perplexed by Nationwide’s focus on its customers. ‘A Good Way to Bank’ - our new brand platform puts us squarely in the banking sector, but different & dedicated to delivering good for its customers, which is our overall core objective of the work.

In this commercial for Nationwide, a fictional CEO of a rival bank only has eyes for his shareholders. Customers are way down on his list of priorities. So, when he discovers Nationwide’s ‘customer first’ approach, he’s less than impressed. And he’s even less impressed when he discovers what his customers think of him.

We saw unprecedented uplifts in brand health scores

We got noticed:

• Ad Awareness rocketed with almost a threefold increase, hitting 25.7% in Nov vs. 9.5% in Jan.

• This leap took us from 4th to 1st place in our competitive set, with scores more than 100% ahead of our closest competitor.

We got talked about:

• People hearing positive things also doubled, to 34% vs. 17% in Jan.

We sparked more positive feeling:

• Positive Impression of the brand increased +24%, from 25.4% in Jan to 31.4% in Nov.

• This score increased even more, +35% for previous rejectors of the brand.

More people wanted to choose us:

• Purchase Intent – brand you are most likely to take out a financial product with increased +37% .

• We influenced 2 million more people to say they would choose Nationwide as their first choice.

Source: Wavemaker analysis of YouGov Brand Index data