Bankwest gets serious about ‘making banking easier’ in new campaign via Host, Sydney
Tennis legend John McEnroe is the star in a new campaign for Bankwest Retail and Business via Host, Sydney.
New spots continue the campaign that launched earlier this year with comedy veteran John Cleese, highlighting even more ways Bankwest are making banking easier. The commercials use McEnroe’s well known rage to demonstrate the frustrations people have with banks, only to find that the ever unflappable Katie, has a simple and easy Bankwest solution to the problem.
McEnroe says he was happy to be involved in the campaign because – “The Bankwest association makes sense to me because I believe in better service and making things easier for the customer”.
Says Julian Watt, ECD, Host: “We launched the campaign with Cleese, who’s classic grumpy. But this time round, we wanted someone more volatile, more impatient and more of a benchmark for where the bank has set their goals to satisfy the most demanding of customers. John, as always, over delivered.”
Says Paul Vivian, Bankwest general manager of customer communications and brand: “In this next iteration of our brand campaign we are thrilled to be introducing a new grumpy character and hard-to-please customer in John McEnroe, who has his perceptions changed by Katie, our fantastic Bankwest colleague. John was great fun to work with and really lived the part, allowing us to use his frustrations, even when they were channeled through a rage puppet, to demonstrate our ‘making banking easier’ proposition.”
The spots were directed by Leo Woodhead, through Revolver.
Client: Bankwest
Agency: Host
Media Agency: Ikon
Executive Creative Director: Julian Watt
Associate Creative Director: Will Miles
Copywriter: Jon Austin
Broadcast Production Director: Kaija Wall
Account Management: Karen Martin, Gareth Pask, Bel Hissey
Planning: Gareth Cooper, Tobey Duncan
Production Co: Revolver
Director: Leo Woodhead
Producer: Pip Smart
DOP: Ray Coates
Editor: Bernard Gary, The Editors
Photographer: Pierre Toussaint
2 Comments
wow –
what a fall from grace for everyone involved.
McEnroe’s good, its just the rest thats bad.
We all know the product/service features need to be the hero here, but why does the female’s performance and dialogue have to be handled like a training video.
Never once does the BankWest lady actually engage with McEnroe or the puppet.
Its like both performances were filmed separately and chopped together afterwards.
Which is a pity because I much prefer McEnroe’s performance to anything Cleese has dished up.