Seylan Bank wins Effie for ‘Seylan Sure’ communication campaign

Tuesday, 24 March 2015 00:20 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Adds to tally of awards won by the brand and market success

Seylan Bank won a Bronze award for their communication campaign on their premier savings product Seylan Sure, at the recently concluded Effie Awards, organised by the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing. Winning the only award in this category (where no golds or silvers were awarded) for the effectiveness of their communication campaign, Seylan once again demonstrated their ability to break new ground in testing the pulse of their target market and being in sync with their hopes and aspirations in saving with “the bank with a heart.”

In a 360 degree communication campaign which addressed and appealed to the average saver/income earner, the bank used an idiom which represented the true spirit of the Sri Lankan culture which when translated means, “Don’t wait for something that will never happen” to express a stark truth which they related directly to their campaign, bringing them the sweeping success they desired to grow their savings base. Interestingly the Seylan Sure brand had won a number of awards during 2014 from many forums including Marketing Campaign of the year and best Loyalty program at the Global Marketing Excellence awards, Excellence in Integrated Marketing Communication at the third Asian Customer Engagement Forum Awards and also a merit award for the best television commercial at the Sumathi Tele Awards 2014. The idea was brought to life using the popularly known Sri Lankan idioms that showcased the futility of waiting for something that cannot happen, such as ‘kalu kaputa sudu vena thuru’ (waiting until the black crow turns white) or ‘molgahe dalu enathuru’ (waiting for the pestle to bear leaves) and ‘kukula biththara damana thuru’ (waiting until a rooster lays eggs). “We are delighted with this win and wish to thank Triad Advertising our creative agency partner for working tirelessly with the marketing and liability products management team and the branch staff at the bank to bring this campaign to life and ensure a 360 degree campaign and lead us to tremendous market success which exceeded our targets, Seylan Bank’s DGM responsible for Liability Product Management, Personal Banking, Digital Alternative Channels, Marketing and Housing Loans Product Management, Tilan Wijeyesekera said. The bank used an integrated marketing campaign with an advertising campaign on electronic and print media, backed by town/office/factory storming campaigns communicating the futility of lottery style promotions and the ‘sure’ benefits of Seylan Sure. The ‘sure benefits’ of Seylan Sure were also communicated to potential customers through a joint SMS campaign with mobile service providers. The bank also used social media to communicate to potential customers through engaging campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google placement ads. In a truly insightful savings reward scheme, the bank drew its entire customer base into its fold, assuring them special sure rewards and gifts in celebration of their special milestones in life. The rewards scheme offered all customers ‘sure’ gifts at marriage, at the birth of every child, for surgery and on the 60th birthday, in recognition of senior citizenship. Seylan Sure is the only scheme with sure gifts for personal savings accountholders and personal current accountholders, to receive these non-repayable cash grants and gifts for milestones in life. All savings and current account holders with a minimum balance of Rs. 20,000 for a continuous period of 6 and 12 months are eligible for these gifts. A further challenge was to bring out the gifts offered by the account, as most potential customers did not know about the benefits. The objectives were to mobilise the saving deposits during the period, enhance the corporate image of the bank, create opportunity for cross selling and up-selling at branches, increase new customers to the bank and conversions from other banks, prevent erosion of savings base to competition and achieve low cost deposits targets for 2014. Seylan Bank launched Seylan Merit Rewards in 2001 when it was considered the most innovative rewards scheme. Competitor banks offering rich reward based on lucky draws was a threat to merit rewards, which evolved into sure rewards. “The award received from the prestigious Effie – a great platform to reward the most effective communications campaigns, was truly an honour to the bank. We extend our heartfelt appreciation to our loyal customers who reap the benefits of Seylan Sure and look forward to offer the best value added products to all our customers in the future as well, concluded Wijeyesekera.