Surprisingly SBI
October 10th, 2005 by Kaushal Sheth
I am sure all Mumbaites have seen this Hoarding hanging almost everywhere. Yes its a nice campaign to remind people SBI still is largest Indian Bank in country and perhaps amongst the best in world.
But that is not the point of this blog. I really liked their ad , very well done. ( Especially the one which states SBI has more customers than population than Australia was really good). The only thing that bothers me is the idea to use word Surprisingly.
Everyone knows SBI is biggest amongst all banks in India and it will take a lot of time for private banks to perhaps get closer to it. Then why use the word Surprisingly ??. Are they not confident they are best?.( or presume all Indian to be dumb) If I had to do campaign I would have used word Ofcourse or Naturally. Ya ofcouse sounds more perfect for this campaign.
Maybe the ad agencies need to do more research on type of words to use for the campiagn. Mind it this is just my heart-felt thought which I think many can relate to.
Posted in Heart Felt |
October 12th, 2005 at 7:43 pm
Maybe they want to express that fact that it is an Indian bank. People probably expect some international bank as the answer to the question, but Surprisingly its an Indian Bank.
October 27th, 2005 at 6:37 pm
Thanks guys for your feedback!!!
I am closely associated with the campaign and will like to share some thoughts with you.
First of all why “Surprisingly SBI”?
Well the answer is it’s “consumerspeak”(who are not SBI customers) rather than an existing customer speaking.
A lot of research has gone into the thinking of the theme and yeah rite we too thought of “Obviously SBI”
But in our research when we talked to the TG of 20-35 year age group,they when faced with facts like largest no.of ATM,Customer,internet banking and stuff said(believe you me…) no sh*t thats pleasantly surprising!!!we thought somebody else.
We cannot say SBI is diffident as it has taken a never before done thing of launching such a massive campaign.
Your views on that…
Shuuv
October 30th, 2005 at 11:31 am
Thx Shuvv for pointing that out.But with new set of campaigns like ones with Home Loans, Car Loans the tagline “Surprisingly SBI” seems to me little inappropriate , awkward. Don’t you think after using “surprising” element for first part of ads the “likely to be @ SBI” element ( for best car rates, home loans ) should have come into picture.
Also using consumer speak for creating awareness amongst people is ok , but in today’s world I feel selling of services ( in this case car loans, home loans ) is highly based on referrals in short customer driven. It’s my personal opinion that company in this case “SBI” should have used this for campaign for its latter parts.
After all we take loans only after asking someone in family , relatives , friends . Existing customers does in some way play a role in Brand Building.
November 7th, 2005 at 2:50 pm
I would like to support Shuuv on some points.
By the look of it I am surprised that it is indeed SBI.SBI could have so many things to speak about is very surprising to me.
What kaushal is saying about referral is called WOM(word of mouth)For that to happen I think the most important thing is the positive experiences at the Branches.Another way to do that is to involve opinion leaders to vouch for your services.
In SBIs case i surmise the ads are doing the job of the WOM.Creating curiosity and generating awareness.
If that was the aim,I guess that is done well.
About the product ads,I think they are using classic branding approach(not surprisng it comes from the stable of O&M.Mr ogilvy is regarded the guru in branding!)
Generate curiosity with your branding campaign
and then tell people what you really can offer with your product offerings when they are already tuned in to your campaign.
Comments
-Sid
November 12th, 2005 at 1:49 pm
Yeah me too. They have now started potraying the “Surprising” factor and its good to see banks with decent cool campaign.
June 30th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
hi
guys the sbi campaign was excellent,but did this campaign helped SBI to improve their bottom line.If no than what next should SBI do?It has only changed the perception abt SBI and not helped in increase consumer base
August 28th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Who doesn’t love classic cars? Seems everybody does and hollywood has jumped on the bandwagon too. You see them in just about every movie and TV show now.
November 1st, 2007 at 9:07 pm
I do love the classics.