Thursday, October 01, 2009

The new Post Office advertising campaign

Post Offices are strange things. They are peppered all over the UK in towns and rural areas.

Long ago they were an integral part of the UK mail service. Now they are places you go to send a parcel, buy a postage stamp and wait in a long queue.

Some older Brits have a strange attachment for them (you might have guessed that I am not one of them). The UK Government has swung from trying to kill them off to now thinking they are a worthwhile thing.

Post Offices are an expensive distribution channel looking to distribute something other than basic postal services. As UK banks try and ditch low value bank accounts, especially those that rely on their branch network, some bright spark has decided to get more people to use the Post Office’s very basic banking services.

Who are the natural targets for this service? Come on who do you think? It is the oldies.

These are the people who don’t use online banking (Mmmm) these are the people who have the spare time to spend it in a long queue waiting to get served. All of this is a well known fact.

To appeal to this group, that the Post Office reckons are ABC1 55+, it is launching its largest ever marketing campaign that will, for the first time use television advertising. The man chosen to front the campaign is Sir Roger Moore who was/is known for his role as James Bond in an era when TV was in black and white (I jest).

The Post Office’s head marketing honcho says: “ the aim of the new campaign is to demonstrate its confidence and stature in the financial services market and boost awareness of its range of savings offers.”

Now the really interesting thing is that the campaign was created by Mother – an ad agency once known for its willingness to push the envelope and do strange and daring stuff. It will be fascinating to see how these young advertising hotshots go about engaging with their grandparent’s generation.

As soon as the campaign material is available I will make it available plus my comments, however, I think they have already made a fundamental mistake in their target customers. I would have said that if there are any customers for these banking services they are C1DE socio economic groups aged 65+. We will see. Dick Stroud

1 comment:

Mike from Drop Ship said...

It is difficult for the elder people to get a hang of new technology and online comforts. It is a good move. Hope it is successful.