In a bid to build women’s financial strength, ANZ bank first needed to address its own reputation if it were to engage, let alone help, an audience largely disenfranchised by not just the brand, but the category itself.

By provoking the uncomfortable truth of financial inequality and highlighting the disparity between a girl’s potential and a women’s reality and advocating for women in both words and action, ANZ significantly shifted its brand perception, realised growth in female customers ahead of category and, most impressively of all, sparked a Government Inquiry into financial gender inequality in retirement.

Stimulating a national conversation (twice) ANZ was invited to make the opening submission at the Senate Inquiry and its actions have had a tangible impact on creating a more equal financial future for both its own female staff and Australian women more broadly.

Purpose marketing investment is often viewed as a Board-pleasing requirement rather than a genuine business driving strategy. Equal Future turned this marketing logic on its head. Where in the past, ANZ viewed product and offer to be the key drivers of purchase intent and CSR to work solely at a reputational level, Equal Future proved to be the highest driver of purchase intent of any ANZ campaign in 2015 [22] and second highest ROI contributor at more than 5 times the global industry ROI benchmark (according to econometric analysis) [24]. Where purpose is ‘all the rage’ in some circles, linking ANZ to a purpose it has permission to own (some might even argue a responsibility) was fundamental to Equal Future’s success.

22. IPSOS, December 2015, titled Impact on Purchase Consideration.

24. Analytic Partners, February 2017, titled Analytic Partners Econometrics.