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What did one astronaut say to the other in FirstBank's new ad campaign targeting business customers?
November 21 -
The bank's new credit card commercial, featuring the actor Samuel L. Jackson and a mild profanity, sparked an online backlash from a conservative watchdog group and customers threatening to close their accounts. Now Capital One has released a G-rated version.
October 30 -
Birds, hot tubs, carousels and more. These are among the images that Beneficial Mutual in Philadelphia used in creative ads to promote financial education and attract customers.
October 3
East River Bank is abandoning banking's usual staid image by using advertisements that it says more accurately reflect its customers entrepreneurial, creative and tattooed.
The Philadelphia company has recently launched a campaign that includes ads on billboards and transit shelters. The ads feature models dressed more casually than typically seen in bank marketing.
"We were trying to use who our customers are," says Christopher McGill, president and chief executive of the $248 million-asset bank. "We wanted to make it relate to the everyday person in Philadelphia. We are not chasing that Fortune 500 company. Instead we are chasing that small tech company located above the beauty salon."
In one ad, a young man is wearing a leather jacket and a knit hat, standing with his arms crossed. Another features an interracial family with a child hoisted on the mother's shoulders. The third ad features a dark-haired woman with tattoos covering her entire left arm.
These images reflect the "family, live, work" aspects of East River-'s customers, McGill says. Typically a bank ad might feature businessmen signing paperwork or sitting in on a formal meeting, McGill says. Instead this campaign "is a bit more edgy" and has gotten positive feedback so far, he says.
The campaign reflects the transition that the city of Philadelphia has been undergoing in recent years.
East River has been part of that recovery effort. It makes loans for renovating and rehabilitating housing. It has also provided volunteers and financial support to community causes. East River emphasizes those connections with the tagline "Bank Local" in the ads.
"We believe relationships are key," McGill says. "Everything else is just tools that make that as seamless as possible for our customers to interact with us."