How a value-led growth strategy challenged one of banking’s hardest behaviours – getting customers to switch – and helped FNB attract 1.74 million new customers in its first year.
Turning customer inertia into a growth opportunity
FNB was already one of South Africa’s leading banks, with a strong reputation for innovation, customer focus and its long-standing “How Can We Help You?” positioning. But growth meant taking customers from other banks. And that was a much harder challenge.
Banking is a highly inert category. People tend to see the major banks as broadly similar, while moving a main bank account feels complicated, disruptive and risky. At the time, more than 80% of South Africans had never switched banks. Within FNB’s core target audience, only 12% had ever done so.
The strategic challenge was therefore bigger than finding a better way to advertise a bank account.
We had to find a compelling enough reason for people to reconsider a relationship they rarely questioned.
What the analysis revealed
The obvious battleground in banking was price.
Fees generated constant debate and FNB had already been publicly identified as one of the most affordable banks. Yet being cheaper had not resulted in customers suddenly abandoning their existing banks for FNB.
That raised a more useful question:
If price mattered so much, why wasn’t being cheaper enough to make people switch?
The answer lay in perceived value.
Banking products had become increasingly difficult to compare. Accounts came with different bundles, rewards, services and benefits. Customers often didn’t know exactly what they were paying their bank -and had even less clarity about everything they received in return.
So while the category talked extensively about price, customers lacked a simple way of judging whether one bank actually offered better overall value than another.
That created the strategic opportunity.
The strategic shift: from price to value
Instead of competing on what banking cost, I led the development of a strategy built around everything customers got in return.
FNB already offered a broad ecosystem of products, services, rewards and benefits. Individually, many could be matched by competitors. Collectively, they became far more powerful.
The strategy was to make the sheer breadth of FNB’s proposition visible and use it to create a perception of superior overall value. Internally, the thinking became known as “Wotalotigot” – emphasising how much customers got rather than how much they paid.
That decision also changed how we thought about communications. Rather than choosing a single hero product, we deliberately brought multiple benefits together. The amount of evidence itself became part of the message.
Give people a reason to compare
There was another behavioural barrier to solve.
If people assumed that all banks were essentially the same, simply telling them FNB was better was unlikely to change much.
We needed them to question that assumption for themselves. The strategy therefore introduced a simple comparison mechanism:
“Does your bank do all that?”
It was deliberately provocative.
Instead of asking customers to accept an advertising claim, it encouraged them to compare what they currently received with what FNB offered.
And because many customers didn’t know whether their existing bank could match FNB’s full proposition, that comparison created doubt – exactly what was needed to disrupt inertia.
Building a strategy designed to last
Changing banks rarely happens immediately.
Someone may become dissatisfied with their bank long before they eventually decide to move. That meant FNB couldn’t rely on short bursts of communication around individual products.
The strategy needed to keep FNB mentally available until the moment a customer was ready to reconsider their banking relationship. We therefore designed the approach around continuity, familiarity and high frequency.
Radio became the primary medium because it allowed FNB to reach the audience repeatedly while continually introducing different proof points. Around 70% of the media budget was concentrated there, supported by outdoor communications.
The intention was straightforward: stay present, keep demonstrating value and keep giving people reasons to compare.
Bringing the strategy to life
The creative expression of the strategy became Steve from [Beep] Bank.
Steve was a fictional call-centre employee working for an unnamed competitor. Whenever he tried to attract or retain customers, he found himself confronted by the range of benefits they already received from FNB.
The character turned a potentially complicated value story into something simple, entertaining and memorable.
More importantly, [Beep] Bank became a proxy for many of the frustrations people associated with the wider banking category.
As the platform grew, Steve’s story evolved with it. More than 220 executions were eventually developed, allowing new FNB products and services to enter the communications without abandoning the central strategic idea.
What began as a customer-acquisition strategy became a long-term brand platform.
The commercial impact
The response substantially exceeded the original objectives.
FNB had set out to increase monthly leads by 40%. Following the introduction of the strategy, the bank reported sustaining lead generation at more than 111% above previous levels.
1.74 million new customers in the first year
More than 1.74 million customers signed up between May 2011 and May 2012.
And the impact went beyond customer acquisition.
FNB’s cross-sell ratio increased from 1.97 to 2.13 products per customer, meaning the bank was also deepening relationships with its customer base.
5% market share growth
Over the period following the launch, FNB increased its market share by approximately five percentage points.
41% revenue growth
Before the strategy launched, FNB’s revenue growth was almost flat at just 0.03%.
Revenue then grew 7% in 2011, 16% in 2012 and 14% in 2013. Indexed against the 2010 base, this represented 41% growth in revenue.
Deposits grew 49% over the same period, while advances increased 21%.
Was marketing really responsible for the growth?
With results this large, it’s important to ask what else might have driven them. The original effectiveness analysis examined exactly that.
There had been no significant new personal banking product capable of explaining the customer growth. FNB had made no major change to its pricing strategy. Its branch network had increased, but by less than it had in the year before the strategy launched – when comparable growth had not occurred.
FNB actually reduced the number of ATMs in its network during the period.
There were promotional activities during the three years, but their scale was insufficient to explain the overall customer gains. FNB also materially outperformed the wider banking category across revenue, deposits and advances.
Advertising investment did increase to support the high-frequency strategy, but FNB’s share-of-voice advantage over its nearest competitor was only around four to six percentage points – again, insufficient on its own to explain the scale of the growth.
Together, these factors provide strong evidence that the strategic change played an important role in the results.
Why the strategy worked
It changed the basis of competition
Instead of fighting an unwinnable battle around individual fees and products, FNB created a much broader value argument.
It challenged an ingrained behaviour
The strategy didn’t simply tell people to switch banks. It gave them a reason to question whether staying with their existing bank still made sense.
It made comparison easy
“Does your bank do all that?” provided customers with a simple mental shortcut for evaluating FNB against their current bank.
It was built for the long term
The strategy was flexible enough to accommodate hundreds of different product messages without changing the central proposition. Consistency built familiarity; variety kept it fresh.
That combination helped turn a customer-acquisition campaign into an enduring growth platform.
Capabilities demonstrated
Growth Strategy | Customer Insight | Brand Strategy | Positioning | Value Proposition | Communications Strategy | Marketing Effectiveness
This work was completed by Gerhard Sagat during his agency career. Gerhard led the strategy, working in partnership with the FNB client team and wider creative, account and media teams.