We often speak about the power of storytelling and its effectiveness to connect with the audience.
But it can’t stop there – you must then take your story and connect it (meaningfully) to your brand.
If you fail to do this, not only do you run the risk of appearing to play on human emotions unnecessarily, your ad fails to achieve what they set out to do … advertise!
Westpac’s most recent commercial has copped a great deal of criticism for this.
Whilst it does a beautiful job of storytelling, it has a weak connection to their brand and message. After watching it I had no idea what their message was.
So, I did some Googling to find out – it wasn’t easy but what I did find was a quote from Westpac’s Group Head of Brand, Jenny Melhuish:
“We know losing a loved one can be one of the most difficult times in someone’s life, and that almost a third of our customers who lose a loved one will experience financial hardship within the first 12 months. In this work we wanted to capture the essence of support and let customers know they can reach out for help over the phone, online or by visiting us in branch."
Now that makes sense! This campaign could have been saved if they had been able to combine this message with the creative.
This ad may win an award for creativity, but I doubt that was Westpac’s objective. You can’t rely on storytelling alone to sell your product, connecting the story to your brand is key.
Allison
