COMM BANK SHOW CONTINUES
February 20 2008, 6:16 pm | | 77 Comments
The next episode in the Comm Bank series, called GAMESHOW, has just gone to air but of course CB is now persona non grata with the Comm Bank PR dept, hence the link to B&T’s upload of the spot on YouTube ….
77 Comments
can we get some production credits for these spots please?
Brilliant.
much better. This could actually be really good.
i think this is really funny – much better than the Mad Max ad. for the first time in a long time (I’m going to say since the Big Beer Ad) i chose to watch it a few times.
it’s good.
Hey, I hear Buckman sent Singo a case of Blonde to thankhim for helping launch the campaign. Brilliant!!!
7.52pm – Same American director and American production company as the other spots so far in this American campaign for Australia’s most iconic bank, which is one aspect of this disgraceful story that has largely been forgotten. We have a world class production industry in Australia but the real American agency, Goodby Silverstein – who don’t give a shit about Australia – chose not to use us. They didn’t even set up a small office in Sydney as was originally planned. If the public knew the real story they would be outraged that their money was being wasted offshore in this way. And remember, this is just the start. This is a series that may go on for years and they are ALL going to be produced in California, not Australia. A bloody disgrace.
I think this is perhaps where the campaign might start coming into its own. It’s all well and good to have a pop at the initial “brand” ad for being a bit done and underwhelming (it was, in isolation), but what it did is set up this sitcom style, which allows unsexy propositions like “Get a second opinion on your mortgage” to be wrapped up in a much more interesting ad than would normally be the case.
Now, the Australia/Austria gag is older than I am, so they’re being incredibly faithful to the American sitcom genre by continuing to use lots of hackneyed gags (ok, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt there).
But there is something nice about the underplayed nature of the spots. They just very quietly say what they want to say, then get off. No browbeating, no big phone numbers and logos, no jingles. Very different to most other things on air.
And as we suspected, they’ve managed to set up a cast of recurring characters that I reckon the public might just warm to as the campaign goes on (if they haven’t already). Especially with CBA’s media spend ensuring the characters become as familiar as old friends within a week or two.
So now we are all going to say they’re good. They’re not.
Austria… that is fkn excellent. I believe every little bit of the research on B&T, as if punters wouldn’t prefer this to any of the other bank wank out there.
Happy Banking? If that was made OS, it would have been given the same treatment as the Goodby work has been given on this blog, with the one MAJOR difference being that it’s about 10% as entertaining, and about 5% as interesting as the cba work.
Well done comm bank for taking a risk and standing out. here’s hoping it raises the bar for the other bank drivel out there.
Welcome to the 20th, no 21st century 10.11.
What car do you drive? Was it made in Aus? Do you shop in coles looking at where the raw ingredients were farmed? No? Didn’t think so.
Anyway, enough of that. Business is business and if CBA didn’t have any confidence in Aus ad agencies then lets just leave it there and move on can we? I’ve never so many cry babies in one place. The campaign is tracking well apparently so that means its working, meeting objectives, contributing to business success. Yeh, it won’t win a lion but do you think that’s ever going to be in the agenda at a CBA board meeting. If people on ‘the outside’ knew of the fuss that goes on around those awards they’d think even worse of us. On a side matter, creatively the campaign is evolving in the right direction I reckon. Its becoming funny, its engaging, we are getting to know the charachters and they are entertaining. Friends of mine who rarely talk about ads have asked me about this campaign. That speaks volumes to me. Lets take a step back and ask ourselves whether we might a little too up our own arses to know what exactly works out there. Are we too bogged down with trying to impress each other? hardly a representative sample of the population, are we?. When was the last time any of us spent a day chatting to people in Castle Hill, Townsville, Wagga or even anywhere west of Leichardt.?
Lets see how the campaign pans out before we judge it – creatively, and by its effect. I have a feeling that Goodby and CBA will be making the Aus industry eat humble pie by the end of the year.
For the record, I dont work for either. Just a casual, neutral observer.
I don’t give a rat’s that they used an american agency and I totally get ‘the gag’, but this really is SHIT advertising.
I have to admit – this is funny.
We’ve heard the Comm Bank desperately defending the campaign with dodgy research figures released yesterday, but are Goodby’s themselves proud of this work? If you visit their own site where they showcase their best work, there’s Comcast, Milk, HP, Netflix, Starbucks, Emerald Nuts, Saturn, Budlite – but no CommBank. You can’t blame them, why would they want to admit they did this. See for yourself @ http://www.goodbysilverstein.com
austrla… pinched straight from dumb and dummer.
At least they used a great aussie actor…
but TOTALLY agree 10.11 another way this campaign sucks. How many aussie dollars continue to go off shore to fund this suck hole
Check all the positive posts from 7.52pm – 2.35am. That’s around the middle of the day San Francisco time.
Let’s stop with the ‘production $$$ going overseas’ crap. Try and get a good Aussie director nowadays and chances are they’ll be doing a job in the States or China. [And I’ve never heard anyone complain when an Aussie agency wins overseas clients either]. Now back to the ads…..funny or not they miss the point. People don’t want the Commbank to be different they just want them to do what they’re supposed to do in the first place. And as for the bank’s research about great brand recall; they’ve got to be kiddin’. Since when was brand recall a problem?
You know Vaseline comes in miniature tubs now, so now the blog isn’t the only place I get to wank over self indulgent ads.
Secretly, we all hope the campaign will get better. I’m still waiting.
Michael Bay pops up again in the latest Verizon ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiHsxQJ9ZOo
It’s actually quite fun, in an American kinda way.
Seriously, get off your high horses. The reason the Comm Bank went overseas was because Australian Financial Advertising sucks. Look at the NAB work. Stop taking it so personally…
The entire world knows that for the most part we’re at the arse end of the advertsing spectrum, and are essentially a retirement home for aging overseas expats; If you can’t make it over there, then you can make it over here.
Grow up and be realistic. You’re a bunch on inward looking knobs.
Unmitigated shit.
4:19 am…. It looks like Goodbys hasn’t updated their site with new work in over 2 years. The emerald nuts is 2 years old, as is the milk and the comcast.
The director is English, Not American. Eric Lynne
Oh please, regardless of it having a bit more entertainment value than the first lot, are consumers really motivated to switch banks by watching an industry inside joke. Perhaps they may like to consider telling us all the wonderful and ‘different’ things that the bank is doing to make banking better.
I’m starting to think that this blog is the ‘sitcom’ more so than the ads. Hoping for a season finale very soon.
Saying that it is a, “Good bank ad,” doesn’t make it a good ad. For this ad to sell a home loan, it has to make me like the brand (because there is no product benefit communicated); this ad tries, but fades to beige.
I very much agree with 10.11. In this day and age of sustainability, I would have thought the importance of supporting local industry (buy ‘Australian Made’ and all that), should be at the forefront of decision making by Marketing departments.
I can understand if we don’t have the goods/talent then yes go offshore. But as that is not the case, makes me and alot of others question the motives behind their decision making.
And furthermore, to advertise the fact that an ‘American Ad Agency’ has been commissioned by Comm bank (an Australian bank) makes me really really angry…it’s a slap to the face!!!
These remind me a LOT of Yell.com ads and idents I saw when in the UK. Same use of ‘silly’ characters to almost distract the audience from the message, while making them remember the brand. If that’s the idea, spot on I guess, but not at all original. No turning back for Comm Bank now, so we’ll just have to wait and see what else rolls out.
If the Commbank marketing dept doesn’t like their campaign being publicly criticised they should stop holding press conferences telling the media how great their ads are and how well they’re working. They should also save us from research showing ‘amazing’ brand recall. All that does is show how desperate and irrelevant they’ve become. Like the other bloggers said. a]Since when was brand recall a problem for the bank and 2] Al Queda has great brand recall and they don’t do any advertising.
As a standalone ad, the first spot was appalling.
But it pains me to say, this one is OK. At least it’s got a benefit in it. Kind of.
It also pains me to say the template-sitcom setup is a clever formula for fast-turnaround ads that banks are generally known for.
Interesting to see how it pans out. Great awareness doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in sales.
Lets all keep in mind that the TV ads are probably just one part of the promotional mix here and an even smaller part of the brand interface. Do we all know what’s going on behind the scenes. Have we seen the point of sale, DM, – are the staff being trained up to interact differently?. You are all assuming that the communications objective for the TV ads was to get consumer’s to switch banks. A tall order for an ad in isolation in most cases. As someone points out, brand recall is probably not a problem but who said that’s the objective either. Just maybe they are tracking by memorability, message recall and likeability in order to move the consumer on to switch banks – but not through just seeing the ad. Come on guys, your embarassing yourselves with your lack of knowledge around the way marketing communications work. Do you really think an ad can fulfil a such an ambitious marketing objective on its own. Put down your creative mangazines for a week and get your hands on a text book about advertising’s contribution to marketing. I do agree though, the bank does have to prove itself to be different in a big way soonish but i’m sure the Goodby planners explained this upfront before the creative brief was even written.
By the way, Goodby have posted the ad on Bestads so they must have some pride in it.
Hey, we should start a Michael Bay topic!
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/cgi_team_creates_realistic_oscar
Wow ,7.02 am. Actually, lets call you Mr Greenwich Mean Time.
I bet you thought you had really cracked it ,CSI style, with your amazing time zone powers.
Gee, you really showed us.
7.52pm Sydney time, is 12.52am San Francisco time.
2.35am Sydney time , is 8.35 am San Francisco time.
Slap bang in the middle of the day in S.F? I don’t think so……Ya clown.
(By the by, were you on the prosecution team for the OJ case?)
Dont worry about CBA seeing you as persona non gratis, you can just do another story on who D5 are employing – it’s fascinating reading.
I haven’t read all of them so someone might’ve already raised this but, of all the Comm Bank comments I’m yet to hear someone ask, ‘where’s the idea?’
There seems to be something in the whole determined thing, and I reckon it would be really big if explored and executed properly. But the whole American Agency executions don’t seem to do it justice. All they do is take you on this weird, uninteresting tangent, then an actor playing the client delivers the client’s product information.
My mortgage bankrolled this shite. Fark.
10.11
you need to get laid man. You’d want to be a major player in this game in order to project such bloody pompousness.
okay, I do everything I can not to comment on this blog but I just saw this ad on air amongst everything else and I can honestly say it is terrible.
You can’t even tell what the hell is going on or what they are talking about. Then the bank tells you they are determined to be different. If my money was with them I would be determined take it somewhere different.
Sorry, I love Goodby, I hate slagging ads but it is really shit.
This ad is lameous maximus. Bring back the Koala’s, especially the wobbly one driving the car.
Hey 3.55, nice job, that’s exactly the response I was after. Hit a nerve have we 🙂
7.02
Don’t much like the ads, but they are – as advertised – different.
Most interesting thing for me is how strategically they are trying to mimic subsidiary ASB’s comms strategy in NZ.
Commbank: “Determined to be different.” using Americans in America to show how one Aussie bank is different.
ASB: “Goldstein, go to NZ and find out what makes that bank different.” using an American in NZ to show how one NZ bank is different.
Full marks for trying to find a point of difference – or more accurately, not finding one but assuring people over and over that there is one. The campaign is different, quirky and has cut through, so better than boring.
I don’t much like it, but even I don’t care about that. I’m sure the creators don’t
These ads are as embarrassing as the American version of The Office.
And they ripped the ‘Austria – Australia’ gag off Dumb & Dumber…
jerk-offs.
Embarassing for who?
Its not about you 9.17. In the target market section of the brief they didn’t mention appealing to the self-indulgent creative folk of the australian advertising industry. Christ, when are we going to start realising that we arent talking to us.
not sure what the second opinion is supposed to be.
comm bank’s interest rate is higher than all the other big banks. and they even put their rate up before anyone else.
so, is the second opinion about how to pay more on your mortgage?
what a sham.
simon
Hey Mr Time Zone
It’s fuck you o’clock.
Hey 11.30am…keep up the good work dude, you’ve fully injested the bait….clearly we’ve hit more than one nerve eh? 🙂
Timezone x
No need to swear.
Look, it’s easy to mix up the middle of the day with the middle of the night. I’m sure it happens all the time.
Everyone makes mistakes, just ask your parents.
Simon you may want to check your facts. Westpac and CBA have the lowest rate even after the increases, ANZ NAB and St George are all higher.
If only we were as concerned about the dismal state of our film and tv industry. get over it. The ads kinda bite but the punters like them.
It’s shit.
No other comment required.
It’s simple. The Commbank ads are great. You guys won’t admit it because they were made overseas. End of story. Now shut up and create something as good as CBA, if you can.
Lucky we don’t have to walk 5km for fresh water.
Come on guys, it’s clearly genius.
Create a vehicle where you can showcase the stupidest and most ludicrous idea you come up with for a proposition, then back it up with a statement straight off the brief.
Who HASN’T wanted to make a campaign that’s that easy?
Can’t believe they used the lame Austria/Australia gag – it’s been rolled out in every dig at Americans since the year dot.
Worse, the idea of the ad is as old as TV, probably older. And it’s been done by every two bit retail account in history – “We don’t need a big ad, we’ve got big savings.”
Same idea, same response from the public – bullshit!
I really can’t believe there are people on here saying this is any better than the rest. Have Commbank sent out an all staff email to get them to make positive comments? Because I can’t believe anyone who actually gets paid in this industry wouldn’t see it for the hack stuff it is.
Yes, 1.24, I’ve seen the Point of Sale.
Remarkably, it’s worse than the TV.
A big yellow poster with a white bit in the corner, with a headline that says “Determined to be better than ever.”
Blown away?
The others in store are all just as breathtaking.
I can’t believe there are people who think Austria/Australia was pinched from Dumb and Dumber. If that was the first time you heard that lamo joke (used by every Aussie comic when being ‘funny’ about every US president since Kennedy) you must be about 12 years old.
The debate around this campaign is making the Australian ad industry look like a parochial bitter bitchy bunch of clowns.
Seriously we live in a global economy: where was your car made? your clothes made? your white goods? your electronics? the f’ing computer your banging this shite onto the blog from? … get real.
I’m sure at some stage Ad Age in the US will cover this and you’ll all be able to bask in the glory of having made our industry a laughing stock…. they’ll also wonder why everyone down here is called anonymous; not Bruce and Sheila!!
And as for Singo, since when did he become the judge of good creative… anyway didn’t he retire… or at least go and focus on doing something else he might be good at cos it sure as hell wasn’t advertising.
No wonder the bank has frozen you out… Its shameful.
hey there 10.43… you suck balls.
8:07am Saturday? (I presume you work at Goodby and you posted your comment Friday). Australians don’t manufacture much in the way of whitegoods, TVs (none), computers (none), electronics, or cars (we assemble some Yank and Japanese makes), but we do know a bit about advertising our own brands, including the Commonwealth Bank, which until the mid 90s when their marketing wallies started screwing with it, had one of the best and most loved campaigns in our history. So powerful, Which Bank? is still accurately recalled to this day. (I can’t imagine that happening with Determied to be Indifferent).
And on an award level, in case you are not aware in SF, Australia has won six Cannes Grand Prix in the last few years, with truly original, ground breaking work, not this sort of lame unoriginal crap that you don’t even feature on your website).
The decision by the bank to go offshore to an agency with absolutely no understanding of Australia (or the public’s current hatred of banks, Comm Bank particularly) is the really shameful thing here. Happy Mardi Gras boys (I presume most of you are here in Sydney today).
Very ironic 5.44.
It was irony, right?
Unless a few words dropped off the end of your sentence.
The Commbank ads are great…
…piles of crap.
That’s be what you meant.
Good. I was worried there for a second
Lynchy, the headline for this thread should have been, THE COMM WANK SHOW CONTINUES (I’m sure you thought about it). Talk about the Emperor’s New Advertising! Remember, this campaign is the desperate, last minute, unresearched, finished half hour before Buckman’s plane leaves SF for Sydney replacement for the campaign Goodby obviously presented several months earlier and the Comm Bankers knocked back – probably because it too was irrelevant and researched poorly. Look, I’m a Goodby fan from day one, when they did those terrific but scammy Episcopal Church print ads in the early 80s. Look at the great stuff on the Goodby site, on the Bestads site, on the Cannes site, they’re a bloody good agency, but they are a US agency, not an Australian agency. It would be like if BMF, with no full service office in California, did the advertising for California’s biggest bank from Sydney. This Comm Bank stuff will never appear on their website because It’s like when George Clooney does an Sake ad for shit loads of money that is only shown in Japan (and on the proviso it never airs in the US because it would damage his reputation). I bet it will never go on their website and I bet it doesn’t even get a finalist at Cannes (that’s if they even enter it), let alone a Gold Lion as the poor Goodby guys were cornered into predicting at that press conference CB Blog didn’t get an invite to. (By the way, they SHOULD be scared of this blog, because it’s the only defense the Australian industry is putting up on a relentless, daily basis and it should continue until the REAL research (as in customers leaving in droves after the new legislation makes it easier and cheaper to switch banks) comes through proving the campaign is a failure.
the most insightful comment ever by 8.07am. The Australian ad industry is looking shameful and so like sore losers – in particular, the “US AGENCY BASHING” is pretty pathetic…and yet typical of parochial Australians (which is why so much Australian advertising talent has left this country in the first place!).
This is funny shit.
Bring back the biff.
All the sad losers who worked on the ‘Which bank?’ campaign that keep crapping on – don’ be so disheartened.
It’s simple changed from ‘Which bank?’ to ‘Which campaign?’
What’s disgraceful is that at least $20m a year in agency fees and tvc production costs, that once were kept in Australia, are now going to the USA – a totally avoidable disaster given our world class agencies and production companies. It’s effectively Australia’s biggest bank robbery – someone should do time. It happened simply on a whim of a handful of people at the Commonwealth Bank. That’s the Commonwealth Bank of AUSTRALIA, not USA – let’s keep reminding them.
Happy mardi gras, hope you all had a ball last night. I’m sure you’re looking forward to the SF one the last week in June (that’s also Cannes week, what a quandary!).
I’ve always thought it was a queer decision to employ a San Francisco agency.
2:42
Don’t confuse the issues.
1] The $$$’s:
Australian directors and production companies work for clients all over the world.
So, please stop with the ‘money should’ve been spent here’ – it’s a global industry – sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. But if it really offends you, after you’ve called the bank, be sure to call Middleditch, Rogers, M&C Saatchi etc and tell them how disappointed you are in them taking work off American, Asian and European production companies and agencies.
2] The campaign:
I think it’s strategically flawed. And its lazy. As a Copyschool lecturer told us ‘it’s easy to be different’. I think he should’ve added ‘its easier to different than right’.
And no I wasn’t waiting to ‘go feral’ as the bank seems to want to label anyone who dares criticise it.
Australia is becoming exponentially more patriotic (Ironically i think that’s because of America through film and tv), but this campaign has unearthed a lot more than anyone would expect. The major newspapers couldn’t care less about Goodby Silverstein- It’s COmmbank they are slamming. I read one journalist on a newspapers website say ‘their are a lot of bad agencies here in Australia- why go overseas to get one?’, but it’s the fact they spent money overseas that has caused anger amongst critics. Also, let’s not forget, the critics for the most part are not young people. Tomorrow i start a Commbank campaign for O week at my university and already all my mates have told me they want to see me with flame throwers and koalas in go karts. I think it’s a matter of perspective. Young Australia aren’t affected by interest rate rises or that distorted sense of patriotism. So i say get over red neck Australia, it’s a funny campaign, and it works!
3:29 normally people finish school before making idiots of themselves. [And by the sound of it that university you’re going to ain’t one of the real ones is is?]
I don’t know if this ad campaign is on the nose, but the poll on themarketer.typepad.com says people like it!
I love this campaign. all you bitter old ad wankers need to get over this. pity aussie agencies are doing crap work for our other banks. so an aussie company uses an american company, boo hoo, they can use whoever they like. free trade right?
has anyone seen that bankwest stuff. aussie agency – crap campaign. not interesting, not funny and a poor rip off of the old creature comforts work from the uk. maybe more aussie clients will go outside of australia for decent work.
Hey Mr ‘Free Trade; you are a deadset dickhead. That’s Aussie for ‘dickhead’!!
Actually, I think the biggest problem with the Commbank campaign (besides saying nothing) isn’t anything to do with it coming out of the US, but rather that it has the same weaknesses as all the big campaigns done in Australia recently. Parody is piss easy to do – or people think it is. Like most of the Australian efforts, the results of the Commbank stuff isn’t funny, it’s just obvious and banal. The use of the Austria/Australia gag is an easy example, but just about every other attempt at humour falls equally flat. If any of the campaign’s fans can point out a single piece of originality, I’ll reconsider my view, but i don’t see it happening.
watch us stand.
that was funny.
I don’t care which agency does it or which film company shoots it or in whichever country, I just want a funny ad or at least one that isn’t insulting.
I wear a sweater when I read a book.
That was funny.
11.48.
“Watch us stand” might be mildly amusing to someone who hates cricket (though it’s far from original), but unfortunately that ad is only shown during the cricket when people who hate cricket generally aren’t watching but people who like cricket are.
Doesn’t that sound just a touch counter productive to you?
I like cricket, and I found ‘watch us stand’ funny.
Still think that the whole campaign direction is hideously flawed though.