UBank set to launch new ‘Since Today’ brand campaign tonight via The Monkeys, Sydney
A man contemplating his life while falling 30,000 feet from a plane is the centrepiece of a new campaign for UBank, created by The Monkeys.
Taking a light-hearted approach to the big questions in life, the commercial encourages Australians to ask themselves whether they could be getting more from their bank.
The campaign will be led by a TV commercial, and amplified in outdoor, digital, press, PR and social media across Australia. The 45 second, 30 second and 15 second television commercials will go to air on Sunday 4 March across all major networks.
The new brand positioning ‘Since Today’ fits perfectly with UBank’s aim to empower people and turn their good intentions into actions. It positions UBank as the catalyst for changing the way people bank.
Says Alex Twigg, General Manager UBank: ” We are really excited about our ‘Since Today’ campaign, it is the first time we have gone to the market with a brand focused initiative and we are looking to see a rise in UBank’s brand awareness.
“We feel ‘Since Today’ perfectly illustrates why UBank is here, to challenge the banking status quo and offer another way for Australians to bank whilst driving product innovation.
“We want to empower our customers to make the most of their money by asking questions like ‘Since when does your loyalty earn bonus interest?’ ‘Since when can you call your bank at 3am?’ or ‘Since when does a bank’s website show other banks’ rates?’
“The answer to all these questions, is of course, ‘Since today with UBank'” said Twigg.
Says Noah Regan, Creative Director, The Monkeys: “We’re all guilty of being a little dismissive and cynical about banks. This campaign establishes UBank as a genuine alternative to the old way of banking – an online bank that’s designed to actually help their customers make money, not the other way around. How refreshing.”
32 Comments
The worst thing ever from the Drunk Monkeys. I wonder if ever in the history of mankind anyone has ever thought about their bank in the last moments? The kind of lazy, self serving advertising that makes clients wary of the whole industry.
Not feeling this. Nicely executed, but the add does nothing to actually set UBank apart from the pack. The “Since today” stuff is more successful at this – but that has nothing to do with the TVC at all.
Wanted to like it. Hoped there was a really amazing twist at the end, but there wasn’t. Not my cup of tea.
Thats great. Nicely played and very different.
Nicely directed by Christopher Riggert. The dude is doing some great stuff.
I saw a beautiful piece he did for an American car brand recently which rocked too. Go son.
I think this is a perfect example of what is being said down below about the Three Little Pigs spot. This reeks of not enough time and not enough money. But a big budget idea that needed time, and…money. It feels a bit half baked to me on every level.
Nicely shot Chris Riggert.
But strategy seems played out in a bit of nebulous way, like it’s got two steps away from what they really want to say. Enjoyed the story all the same.
Seems like a good idea to me. A new bank challenging the others. And its well shot and seems like a campaignable idea. Well done all.
What is with those wolves? Their faces are not right at all! Dodgy post. Great direction though. Funny spot.
Good fun spot. Well done.
‘A man contemplating his life while falling 30,000 feet from a plane’.
Someone’s been reading the opening chapter of Salman Rushie’s infamous ‘The Satanic Verses’, haven’t they?
Nicely directed, but it doesn’t give me a reason to change banks.
‘Man has near death experience and reconsiders his priorities (insert product category here).
Poor, and the whole status quo thing bollocks banks are all about making money, I get sick of this empty waffle banks keep coming out with. Show us something other than a break up note and skydiver please.
Really? How can so many comments rave about such a traditional piece of advertising?
The swingometer seems perfectly poised between ‘extreme naivety’ or ‘sucking up’
Has anyone seen ‘The Grey’?
This klind of self-serving advertising is what makes clients shop for a new agency. It won’t increase consideration nor will it lead to increased sales.
I think this speaks more for the production company than the agency.
so far removed from the product its ridiculous. if they could have their time again I’m sure they’d run a better ad.
Awful
Thats a great spot. Good on ya Monkeys.
Many people think that Christopher Riggert is the most talented of a young generation of directors living in Australia and working internationally, and we’d agree.
With this spot, however, the execution does not match the challenge. We’d suspect that money was the culprit, but that just begs the argument of why a talented director would take on a visual script with this amount of CG required to make the story believable to the eye, and collaborate with a visual effects company who were either not up to the task creatively, or unable to do the work required given the budgetary restrictions.
It’s an unfortunate miss, because the scale of the storytelling could have yielded something on the level of Steve Rogers’ Toyota “Knives” commercial for Saatchis from a few years back, but because of cut and paste wolf heads, amazingly undercooked 3D objects that ‘save the day’ in the end, even the weatherman key compositing of the mid-air sequence, we’re forced to undervalue what might have been a believable performance by the actor, and a script that actually had a dramatic and somewhat imaginative story to tell, especially for a bank.
In the end, the entire exercise looks like a vast overreach. This is an agency that has taken some huge creative steps in the past year, but the problem seems to be that the creative is too frequently mismatched to the budgets. The whole situation screams for producers on the agency, as well as the production side who can assess what it takes to realise work within financial parameters, or to sell the creative to the client at the price it demands, or to know when and how to quote what it takes to produce the creative, demanding the budget, a rewrite, or regretfully but sensibly walking away.
Knowing when to say no, is half the battle.
The worst thing ever from the monkeys – due to director. Too heavy handed. Pinched and over produced.
Ahh Finch Lover, good to see the post companies are also happy to dish out cathartic doses of self serving bitterness. A welcome addition to the CB discourse. Dukes up!
@ Finch Lover
Spoken like a true producer. Sorry, but you’re wrong.
More important than the post production, or bad Weather Man compositing, is The Script. The most important ingredient of any creative idea.
Great post can’t save a bad idea, no matter how much money you throw at it, and should never be used as an excuse for poor creativity.
You clearly think this is a great idea let down by the budget, but I totally disagree with you. This was a bad script to begin with.
From the concept to the production to the tagline – every aspect a letdown.
@ Finch lover – even with a big budget this script wouldn’t have come anywhere close to Camry Knives. Who are you kidding.
incredibly contrived and overly executed – I was looking for the culprit but he hasn’t produced anything yet
Another bank ad telling me how I should live my life. Sorry, in this case, should’ve lived my life.
This reminds me of that dreadful spot NAB did in 2007 for Climb Every Mountain in it’s scale, pointlessness, relevancy and ultimately how it says nothing. Don’t remember it? No, either did I till this.
“Yeah dude, so the guy falls out of the plane yeah, then lands in a forest, and theres these wolves and his suitcase falls and kills one.”
“Nice man, yeah, nice, we rule!”
I’m with “Ideas anyone?”. I can excuse the average execution, but I see absolutely ZERO consumer insight or BENEFIT in this spot. Would love to know how this ever got signed off. I suspect a bit of “emperors new clothes” syndrome…
terrible
Almost had me… Then I saw the ‘property of NAB’ stamp at the end and realized it was just another bank after all!
Wtf! do these institutions really think the public are so stupid they won’t somehow link UBank to the standard bastard behavior of the parent?
… And ‘no’ I don’t buy that NAB ‘break-up’ bullshit either… they’re still a bad bastard bank… Still part of the cartel.
They just think they’ve found a clever way of stealing customers off the other banks so they can then fleece them of their money.
For F’s sake we all know the banks have been the bad guys since Jesus was a lad… remember those money men on the steps of the temple? Ain’t never gonna change.
disgusted by the commercial.
Any advertising with suggestions/depictions of animals be they real or animated, being hurt, maimed, or in this case killed is revolting.
We have enough braindead waste of air morons in the world who see no harm in animal abuse we really do not need this type of image to perpetuate the idea that any creature, real, animated,tame or wild deserves to be squashed to death by a flying suitcase!
http://www.facebook.com/groups/255817691176411/
join me on facebook to voice your disgust