Some brands make you feel all soft and gooey inside (usually Pizza-related) and then there’s personal finance.
With the cost of living crisis starting to bite and more consumers focusing on budgeting and cutting spending, personal finance might not be an area that fills everyone with glee.
This is something CommBank’s CMO Jo Boundy is all too aware of.
“We have the largest bank in the country with millions of customers, but we don’t tend to be a brand that conjures up a lot of emotion and passion for people,” she told B&T in an interview for our CMO Power List.
Despite the difficulty in emotionally connecting to customers on such a loaded topic, CommBank is a brand that is rapidly winning the approval of the nation – it was recently named YouGov’s biggest brand mover for January.
One of the ways CommBank successfully won the heart of the nation last year was by being the lead sponsor of the Matildas.
The Matildas first caught the eyes of CommBank back in 2021 when “Football Australia wasn’t in a great spot,” Boundy explains.
“Westfield sponsored them at the time, and they’d walked away. We spent a lot of time with Football Australia, talking about, what our vision was, what their vision was, and how we could come together as a true partnership”.
CommBank was more than rewarded for their investment, with the home team going on to win the hearts and attention of the entire country.
“To find something that is a real passion point for people and to be able to connect with people in that regard as a brand. For me, that’s the ROI”.
In more recent times, CommBank has won consumer support for stepping in to provide emergency assistance to tropical cyclone Kirrily affected areas in North Queensland.
The key to building that human brand relationship in the financial space is trust, Boundy says.
“For a brand like ours, and in financial services generally, trust is critical, it’s paramount. It’s our single biggest driver,” she said.
Boundy acknowledged that consumer trust in the sector was damaged by a Royal Commission into banking that reported in 2019. However, she said that CommBank faced this challenge with a meaningful apology, purposeful actions and a commitment to doing the right thing for customers and the community.
“Over time our action has rebuilt trust,” she said.
