If you want to know how cut-throat the world of bank marketing is, just ask Westpac New Zealand Chief Marketing Officer Suraiya Phillimore-Smith. “My daughter turned up the other day and asked me to go and get a Clever Kash elephant, which is the ASB savings tool! She asked me ‘when are you making an elephant?’ I said, ‘we don’t have an elephant but we have a chopper’,” she says with a laugh.
What can we learn from this story? There is never a bad time for banks to attract a potential customer, and they use a variety of marketing strategies and tactics to do so, backed by budgets that would make most Kiwi marketing bosses green with envy. They also make judicious use of sponsorships and partnerships with sports teams and charities to enhance their brands. The ‘chopper’ Suraiya refers to is the Westpac Rescue Helicopter, which the bank has been associated with for more than 40 years.
“Westpac helicopter is really important to us because it supports all those communities in New Zealand and there’s such a diversity in what they do,” she
