Bendigo Bank's new brand advertising campaign

‘You need to know the Bendigo’ is the sign-off line in Bendigo Bank’s new national brand TV advertising campaign, due to screen from Sunday 18 September.

Created by the bank’s advertising agency BADJAR, the campaign takes the bank’s customer and community focus to a new level, with the four commercials in the series actually filmed and spoken by bank customers.

Under direction from a professional film-maker, customers used a Bolex movie camera to shoot their own footage, then hit the sound booth to record voice-overs.

“It was a radical and risky approach – downhill, one ski, no poles – but we are delighted with the outcome,” said bank spokesman Owen Davies.

“The ads look great and have a lot of energy and spontaneity.

“And they accurately reflect our brand values. We have always maintained that successful customers and successful communities create a successful bank, in that order, and the campaign reflects this.

“It is actual customers telling their own stories of how Bendigo Bank has helped them achieve better outcomes. The approach taken by our director Chris Sferrazza makes it very obvious to viewers that what they are about to watch was actually created by our customers.”

The four, 30-second commercials cover e-banking, Green Loans, business banking and Community Bank. The four stories were chosen from about 100 submitted by staff across Australia.

The e-banking (featuring Renee Mathews and Al Hopping from Perth) and Green Loan (Sandra Dibbs and Mark Hogan) stories will screen in September/October, with the others to screen in the New Year.

The television will be supported by a national metropolitan and regional press campaign, plus some radio.

Mr Davies said the campaign aimed to increase both brand awareness and consumer understanding of just what the Bendigo offered.

“We are highly regarded for our customer service and our community engagement work, but many people perhaps don’t realise that we provide full personal and business banking as well as wealth management solutions.

“The campaign also stresses our accessibility. It will come as a surprise to many people to realise we now have more than 300 branches and nearly 400 ATMs across all States and the ACT.”

“Hence ‘you need to know the Bendigo’.”

The campaign is Bendigo’s first brand campaign since the 2001 ‘Kitchen Table’ series that featured customers speaking about their experiences with the bank.