Standard Bank’s first global campaign to support growth in emerging markets

Donna Palinhos — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:00:14 +0000

Standard Bank positions itself as a global player with new campaign

Quick facts:

Standard Bank’s new global advertising campaign supports the group’s growth in emerging markets.
Standard Bank is positioned as a single brand, as a globally focused bank with emerging markets at the core, and as a strong regional bank.
The campaign was created after extensive interaction with 50 000 employees across 33 countries.
Standard Bank's new pay-off line, ‘Moving Forward’, highlights the group’s strategy to move customers forward through making the right connections.

Release text:

Standard Bank recently announced its first integrated global and in-country advertising campaign, which is expected to reach about 475-million people in over 30 countries.

The campaign reiterates Standard Bank’s position as a leading emerging markets financial services organisation focused on Africa and other emerging markets, particularly those with links to Africa. This focus underpins recent acquisitions in Nigeria, Kenya, Russia, Argentina and Turkey.

From a marketing perspective, this business strategy is supported by portraying Standard Bank as a single brand, as a globally focused bank with emerging markets at the core, and as a strong regional bank.

The launch of the new global campaign reflects the group’s vision, strategy and values, and follows an intensive six-month internal alignment process which included input from 50 000 employees across 33 countries through an employee engagement survey called Heartbeat. This survey provided valuable insights into what employees think of the bank, its leaders and its chosen direction.

In addition, Standard Bank executives recently hosted 58 road shows in 26 countries at 33 locations around the world to connect with more than 35 000 employees and to share insights into the group’s history and plans for the future. The group has also developed an innovative social network site called BlueConnection which is similar to Facebook and Twitter.

Standard Bank’s brief to its agency, TBWA/Hunt Lascaris, was to identify a universal idea that would position the group globally and deliver relevance in each market, product and offering. The result is a campaign which highlights the group’s strategy to move customers and clients forward through making the right connections – hence the pay-off-line of ‘Moving Forward’. The campaign will be seen across broadcast, print and online platforms in each market where Standard Bank has operations.

Standard Bank has also developed a specific South Africa campaign aligned to and supporting the global campaign that talks to its Personal and Business Banking and Corporate and Investment Banking customers, positioning the bank as the leading financial services organisation.

Quotes:

“Successful business growth through acquisitions and organic growth has demonstrated Standard Bank’s unique ability to make connections with and for customers, employees and other stakeholders across different markets.” – Sarah-Anne Orphanides, Standard Bank Group Marketing and Communications Director

“We wanted our people to help shape our future and the feedback has and is being used to build connections with our employees.” - Sarah-Anne Orphanides, Standard Bank Group Marketing and Communications Director

“The process of aligning employees and bringing everyone on board is critical to the success of our mono-brand strategy and defined positioning. We launch this effort with a high degree of confidence that employees around the world understand what is expected of all of us to deliver to our customers and clients.” - Sarah-Anne Orphanides, Standard Bank Group Marketing and Communications Director

“How we position ourselves in the markets is a reflection of our vision and strategy, the choices we make and the things we focus on. This global campaign aligns all our marketing efforts to this drive.” - Sarah-Anne Orphanides, Standard Bank Group Marketing and Communications Director

“Financial services advertising throughout the world suffers from a sea of sameness. It is difficult to tell one brand from another. We wanted to create something that was unique, that makes Standard Bank stand out from the clutter. We wanted to develop a positioning, style and tone that is not only distinctive but works across all our markets.” - Nikki Twomey, Standard Bank Group Brand Director

“The pay-off line, ‘Moving Forward’, reflects the benefits for customers and clients – ‘how we connect the right bits, at the right time, at the right place, in the right way in order to unlock something better and create opportunities that move you forward.’” - Nikki Twomey, Standard Bank Group Brand Director

“Standard Bank launched its own staff social network... it’s very cool!” – Hayley Malherbe, Standard Bank Employee (comment posted on Twitter)

Credits:

This Social Media Release (SMR) was created and issued by Brandsh on behalf of Standard Bank.

Contact info & links

Media contacts:

Erik Larsen
Standard Bank
Press Relations
+27 (0)11 636 7520
+27 (0)83 252 7678
erik.larsen@standardbank.co.za

Mandy Kojetin/Hilary Macaulay
Magna Carta Public Relations
+27 (0)11 784 2598
+27 (0)83 626 8072/+ 27 (0)83 628 6405
mandy@magna-carta.co.za
hilary@magna-carta.co.za

Link:

Standard Bank

Standard Bank Blog

Moving Forward Site

Twitter URL:

http://www.twitter.com/standardbankgrp

Youtube URL:

http://www.youtube.com/standardbankgroup

Downloadable file:

Brandsh_Std Bank_SMR_Global campaign.doc.pdf

Brandsh_Std Bank_BlueConnection.pdf

Standard Bank SMR

Standard Bank’s first global campaign to support growth in emerging markets