CommBank re-launches its ‘CAN’ platform with first-of-its-kind use of ATMs via M&C Saatchi
CommBank ‘CAN’, the long running brand promise for the Commonwealth Bank, is being evolved this week in a nation-wide integrated platform via M&C Saatchi Group. Recent research undertaken by CommBank found the majority of Australian adults (66 per cent) admit to feeling uncertain about what the future holds, with these feelings particularly pronounced when it comes to matters of a financial nature.
As Australia’s largest bank, CBA recognise it has a responsibility to partner with Australians to find new ways to move forward.
The new brand platform centres around listening to Australians about the challenges we face at an individual and national level. In a first-of-its-kind use of an ATM network, CommBank will be asking Australians questions that matter to
all of us, such as ‘Is the Australian property dream still a reality?,’ ‘Are our businesses ready to face the future?’ and ‘Do our kids have the skills they need for tomorrow?’.
People around the
country will have the opportunity to answer the questions at ATMs and online, which will form the basis of a national conversation about the challenges we face as individuals and society, and how to create new paths forward together.
Says Michael Canning, executive creative director, M&C Saatchi: “CommBank ‘CAN’ was born of a cultural moment when Australian’s were losing confidence in the face of the global financial crisis. In 2017, there is a similar cultural tide as people feel uncertain about the future and a little stuck with traditional paths to reach their goals. This new platform is designed to first listen to people’s views around Australia, which will form the basis of new ways for CommBank to partner with Australians at both and individual and national level.”
In the spirit of the ‘CAN’ brand promise, the platform signals a new approach for CommBank to create new initiatives, products and solutions to help find new paths forward.
Stuart Tucker, Commonwealth Bank’s general manager of brand, sponsorship and
marketing services, said the bank recognised that a new landscape required a new approach to address the important issues in people’s lives.
Says Tucker: “It’s only natural that people feel uncertain – look at the events of 2016.
“We’re hearing this through our conversations with customers, and through our market research. This new campaign is all about showing Australians that we understand the uncertainty they’re feeling, and to help them find news paths forward.”
The integrated launch campaign was shot by Simon Harsent and Sean Izzard of The POOL COLLECTIVE. Harsent directed the 60′ film launch spot while Izzard created a series of portraits of different Australians from around the country for the integrated campaign.
As people around Australia lend their voice to the campaign, CommBank will share data collated from the ATM network and integrated media across the country, which will be used as the basis for a platform of work throughout the year.
In conjunction with the new brand platform, M&C Saatchi worked with M&C Saatchi Group Company RE, to design a new brand strategy & visual identity for CommBank.
CBA
GM of Brand, Sponsorships and Marketing Services: Stuart Tucker
Executive Manager, Integrated Brand & Social Communications: Tamisine Heath\hgyi
Executive Manager, Brand Strategy: Linda Manos
Marketing Manager: Emma Squires-McCarthy
Social Manager, Operations: Matt Norton
M&C Saatchi Agency
Executive Creative Director: Michael Canning
Creative Directors: Tim Green, Andy Flemming, Shane Gibson, Guy Futcher, Brendan Donnelly
Managing Partner: Lee Simpson
Group Account Director: Tanya Vragalis
Senior Account Director: Kezia Quinn
Account Director: Tori Davis
Project Director: Danielle Mountford
Brand Strategy Director: Nicky Bryson
CBA Strategy Lead: Alex Roper
TV Production: Rod James, Lil Ireland
Head of Print Production: Trent Henderson
Senior Print Producer: Greg Hyslop
Creative Workflow: Sharon Georgiou, Natalie Lavelle-Mangan
Executive Integrated Design Director: Matt Willis
UX Director: Ken Marlewski
Design Director: James Jamias
Senior Motion Graphics Designer: Cameron Nash
Senior Integrated Designer: Rod Robles
Digital Designers: Harry Tuckwell, Danielle Pontes, Bianca Cassaniti
Digital Producers: Kevin Bintoro, Emma Wetton, Jaz Lumsdaine
Lead Finished Artist: Salvatore Liseo
Finished artist: Holly Jones
Head of Retouching: Adam Holden
Senior Retoucher: Richard Hughes
RE:
Managing Director: Patrick Guerrera
Creative Director: Colin Cornwell
Associate Design Director: Ali Ozden
Head of Verbal Branding: Shannon Bell
Strategist: Zoe Bruce
Senior Account Director: Sarah Burling
Senior Copywriter: Jane Duru
Senior Designer: Alex Creamer
Designer: Alex McLauchlan
Senior Designer / Motion Designer: Sumita Maharaj
Production Company: The POOL COLLECTIVE
Director / Photographer: Simon Harsent & Sean Izzard
Managing Director: Cameron Gray
Producers: Petrea Lambert & Honae MacNeill
DOP: Simon Ozolins
Production Design: Tess Strelein
Heckler
Aborah Buick – Head of Production
Editor: Andrew Holmes
Compositor: Max Peillon
58 Comments
Nice one Harsent!
Good video to explain the brief…when are you doing the actual doing creative work?
That’s a seriously expensive (and indulgent) way to run a consumer survey. Also… I can’t WAIT to spend more time at my ATM answering questions. Yay!!!
Bryson brings home the goods once again 😉
I love it. Inclusive and beautiful. Well done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLg7RX36ygw
I quite like it.
Clocked it yesterday which is more than I can say about anything else on the box last night.
I love that track
I too love this track.
I quite like it.
Clocked it yesterday which is more than I can say about anything else on the box last night.
Imagine the poor fuckers waiting in the rain, in the queue behind me while I fill out the survey. Surely I’d get a good dose of verbal abuse, or, in a worst case scenario, a smack in the head.
I get it, but ….. it’s so bloody miserable. Where’s all the positiveness of ‘Can’ gone?
This is everything Australians are trying to escape by the time they get home from working too hard for too little. And that my friends is why the very people this ad is aimed at would rather sit down and watch MKR, I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and Married at First Sight! ‘Can’ inspired me. This depresses me.
Serious insights coming from that survey….
The track was better on this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oukvMlJH8oY
You’ve got more chance of eunuchs lining up at the sperm bank than customers lining up at The Comm Bank.
The ATM idea is great. And lovely cinematography Simon, you clever fucker.
I liked the track better on this :
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uqb-S3-s-Pg
The first rule of being a lawyer is: don’t ask questions that you don’t know the answer to.
The answer to all of those questions is obviously NO.
Even the yes men in the agency could presumably see that.
Yet given the long list of agency people (many of whom are not too mentally retarded)
didn’t have the fortitude to see that this strategy is literally wasting customers time.
But they went along with it anyway.
The queue to the clients door should’ve been even longer (if that’s possible) than the
queues at the banks ATM’s.
I agree with @Another Question, in that it feels like the brief as an ad.
In my mind, the last question is the only one that really matters.
I guess the real insight will come from those who like their bank enough to do their work for them – then let’s see how Commbank CAN provide the answers.
Not sure what the creatives actually did on this one.
That said, lovely pictures. Bravo to the shooters.
That’s a long list of people seemingly very proud of something very ordinary.
You’ve created a campaign that at best is vanilla wallpaper and at worst pisses people off by wasting their time when they just want to withdraw some money.
M&C is going downhill fast.
That track has appeared in about eight ads in Australia alone, then the snowboarding vids, Red Bull clips etc. Could it be the most licensed track ever?
How positively boring. What happened to CAN’s positivity and who wants to answer questions while at an ATM?
Strategically wrong for the brand. Stop asking people stupid questions. Service them, bank them, show them how you’re moving them forward. Nobody cares. Is the Australian dream of owning a home dead? Yes. What are you going to do about it?
Sounds like some esoteric research rubbish planners did and sold to clients as a great idea. Why creatives went along with this is..
I love it. Might even withdraw money to play a part.
This work is honest and real. Something people appreciate from brands these days. Well done
Stop asking questions and maybe start doing things to answer them. We don’t care about the questions, we just want the answers (ie: better products, better service that are going to help etc). What a waste of time & money.
Is CAN about to be replaced by WHY? Feels distinctly sad.
Love this work. Nothing ‘addy’ about it which is clearly lost on some people. The fact that the brand is going to build new services or products based on a conversation with Australians is great.
Is this the campaign that the CCO left so abruptly over? Fair.
Stinks of strategy planners.And M&C have a lot of them.
Nice of you to call the team “not too mentally retarded”, speaking of brains – how’s your career/brain surgery going? Right, now to respond to your fair comment, I think you’ll find the ATMs asks you one question whilst your cash is being distributed which ( it doesn’t take brain surgery to figure out) takes up a few seconds of your time anyway. Have a nice day.
Hey there’s the powerpoint preso from the planners, oh and the client added a few more. Now go and make it look good. And don’t forget to underline the important bits. Crikey, it’s easy to see the vacuum in senior creative direction exposed here.
It was so much better when every ad used Ice Cream as the track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FsvMyQeC-Q
At least it was fun to watch.
I quite liked it.
Thought it could have had a better wrap up at the end, though.
that sooooooo many people were desperate to have their name on such mundane work.
Sounds like someone from the agency got their knickers in a twist by some pretty fair criticism. It’s part of the business. Get over it. Comm Bank customers and joe public will be your judge and jury at the end of the day. Brace yourselves.
Sounds like someone from the agency got their knickers in a twist by some pretty fair criticism. It’s part of the business. Get over it. Comm Bank customers and joe public will be your judge and jury at the end of the day. Brace yourselves.
It’s a very clever pitch for The Australian Electoral Commission account. Instead of queuing up at polling booths you can now queue up and vote at your nearest ATM. Genius.
How many creative directors does it take to …. seriously there are 5! Did they write a question each?
Maybe people decrying the death of CommBank and M&C should actually stop and think…”I wonder if there’s another phase”. “When will the answers come out?”. Is this a Bank actually telling people they want to listen and do something about it. Rather than the other banks who just tell you what they’re going to do.
Also, people complaining about taking longer at the ATM… it happens while the transaction is going through. Not a bad UX at all.
As usual on Campaign Brief, people just dying to troll and having a misinformed opinion without all the facts.
Maybe people decrying the death of CommBank and M&C should actually stop and think…”I wonder if there’s another phase”. “When will the answers come out?”. Is this a Bank actually telling people they want to listen and do something about it. Rather than the other banks who just tell you what they’re going to do.
Also, people complaining about taking longer at the ATM… it happens while the transaction is going through. Not a bad UX at all.
As usual on Campaign Brief, people just dying to troll and having a misinformed opinion without all the facts.
…even
Come back Andy. I now see what life is like without you.
Look at everyone just making sure they’re name is on the awards!! Holy shit thats a lot of creative directors and no teams whatsoever.
Meanwhile good use of an already existing networks – ATMS. Well played.
Cant wait for Woolies or Coles to imitate and roll this out at the check outs:
“Do you think we’re ripping off Aussie fruit n veg farmers?”
“Does that one wobbly trolley wheel make you wanna ram-raid through the checkouts?”
I think we all get there’s more to come.
That’s not a good thing!! I want to stab my eyes out just thinking about the endless dull executions that await us.
Seriously, how can anyone at M&C think this is any good? So you found a new use for ATM’s… big fucking deal. That doesn’t excuse the rest of the campaign which isutter drivel.
The last thing I’d want is my name on this credit list.
There are no awards in this work – just the certainty that nobody is going to hire the people responsible for it anytime soon.
Check out all the hate. Call me optimistic? Youthful? But I liked it. I guess my career hasn’t burnt me yet like the rest of you old blokes. Back to your beers boys. I think its clean and considered. Well done.
More to come? Do you think the Australian dream of property is a reality? Thought provoking. Geeze what will they say? I won’t be able to sleep tonight in anticipation. And what will the bank do if they answer no? Lower interest rates? Give me a fucking break.
How about this one.
Did the people who wrote ‘I quite like it’ in the comments also had their names in the credits? Yes. No.
This nauseating stream of predictable back and forth is boring me to death.
Put your effort into making good work, not trying to discredit what other people have done.
I for one like the work. It’s different. Let’s see where they Can take it.
I think the transparency of this work is refreshing. it’s obviously the start of something bigger for commonwealth bank in new services they’re creating as a result.
You clearly have no idea, but then again building banner ads all day does cloud your view…this is wallpaper and the creative bods earning their monthly retailer should know better…I’m off to have a nice cold amber ale:) from a not so old creative bloke.
Haters gonna hate. I think this work is a modern approach for a bank and will no doubt get people talking. By the looks of it it’s even got some old ad trolls fired up
This is the kind of brand campaign that’s automatically unmanned, the second CBA foreclose on a farmer because he/she can’t pay his mortgage due to a bad crop, they report an over zealous twenty-something to a default/collection agency, because they’re late to pay a credit card bill, or on Thursday, when all the pensioners and people on the dole go to their local bank to get some real money (it’s still Australia’s ‘battler’s bank’ to the tune of 4 million account holders remember) and they have to wait ages in a queue to get served, because there’s only on teller working in the branch.
At lunch time.
When everyone else has the small window of time to do their banking.
This is abject twaddle – exactly the kind of campaign a bank instigates, when it’s own internal research tells it that it’s out of touch with every one of its customers, bar shareholders – and despite the excellent production values and neat use of ATM’s as a bespoke communication channel, will last for about six months, I reckon.
That’s what my Grandad said, anyway.
Westpac NZ ran a start asking campaign a few years back and the launch commercial was creatively very good. As this should could be.
Sadly Sara this won’t get people talking.This stuff is on tv panel shows every night.
The radio is awash with this constant collecting of opinions.
What would get people talking is another genuinely original peice of work like the inspirational tvc that launched Can for CBA.That made me feel optimistic.This just depresses me.
Nice to see the usual bunch of cunts slither out from under whichever banner ad they’re working on to anonymously troll a brand ad they simply couldn’t have ever written, sold and made.
As Australia barely wins D&AD any more and its Lion haul is generally for one campaign, I often stop to wonder what everyone’s working on that’s so gobsmackingly amazing that it warrants attacking everything else.
Or, as I strongly believe the case to be, everyone’s working on absolute shit and their futures are pretty grim so they rip into each and every campaign that’s better than theirs.
Tommy what makes everyone who doesn’t like the (your?) work a ‘banner ad’ creator?
How absolutely rude and patronising.Also clean your mouth out.It’s 2017 nobody talks like that any more old timer.This work is poor not the least because Commonwealth have approved and produced some outstanding work over the last few years.
What’s gone wrong?
Anyone know the name of the song?
Having worked on big service brands I can respect the ability to get such a big engagement idea out