Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, NAB test Australians' honesty with social experiments

The campaign now focuses on its credit card services and the bank's philosophy of 'More give, less take'. The bank added that it believes Australian deserve an "honest" credit card and system, one which is less complicated and with no hidden fee structures. 

With this in mind, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne conducted a series of experiments that were designed to test how honest Australians really are. Three scenarios were tried out and candidly filmed to find out people's real behaviour and the lengths they would go to in being honest.  

'The Lost Wallet' wanted to see if a dropped wallet on the street would be returned to the person's office based on identification inside the wallet. The second experiment, 'Incorrect change', featured a barista who deliberately gives customers too much change. Lastly, 'leaky pockets' has a guy deliberately dropping money on the street as he fishes for his keys to his car.

All three scenarios showed a high level of honesty among Australians, which is the target market that the bank wanted to reach with its end slogan 'Australians are an honest lot. They deserve credit cards to match.'

The 'Honesty experiments' will launch online and spread through social media, then tap mass media such as television, print and outdoor ads. The National Australia Bank's 'Break up' campaign took home the PR Grand Prix at this years Cannes Lions event.

“Whilst this move is something that might make us unpopular with the other banks, we know that both new and existing NAB customers deserve to be treated as the honest people they are. With this new campaign, the agency has once again captured this in a creative and relative way for our customers,” commented NAB general manager cards and personal loans, Mike Shurlin.

Clemenger BBDO Melbourne executive creative director Ant Keogh, said, “Like the ‘Breakup’ before it, this creative idea comes out of NAB changing their behaviour compared to the other banks. Once again, we are just showcasing a great product in a creative way.”

Credits:

Client  NAB
Executive creative director  Ant Keogh
Creative directors  Tom Martin, Julian Schreiber, Rohan Lancaster, Darren Pitt
Senior creatives  Ben Keenan, Quenton Miller
Senior agency producer  Sevda Cemo
Account management team Simon Lamplough, Andrew Drougas, Belinda Danks, Melisa Lay, Tanya Garma
Planner  Sarah Malcolm
Director digital innovation  Eaon Pritchard
Executive interactive producer  Sasha Cunningham
Interactive producer Terry Mann
Director  The Glue Society
Production company  Will O’Rourke
Post production company  The Editors/ HUB PLUS
Sound production company  Flagstaff Sound
Music Production company  Level Two Music