APEX Awards 2016 - Nedbank Savvy

A Sustain Silver APEX award went to Joe Public United for client Nedbank. Over the last four years, it can be said that Nedbank steadily, quietly and sustainably grew its retail franchise in the middle market in the face of fierce competition. The banking space has been profoundly impacted by the competitive dynamics driven by namely, the success of Capitec as a business, as well as the relative success of FNB, fueled by a strong innovation drive; these seem to stand out in the category. These business dynamics were arguably supported by aggressive communication strategies, although in both these cases the effect of product innovation and business dynamics would be hard to ignore.

There is however a lesser known but not less spectacular success story in the banking category, which has arguably been far less dependent on business dynamics, and far more on a successful and consistent marketing and communication approach: The Nedbank story.
In early 2016, figures were published in the press showing that Nedbank was continuing to make headway into the category and was rapidly closing the gap with FNB, in line with Capitec's growth.

At the heart of this communication strategy is the success of the Eugene campaign. "Eugene" is the story of how Nedbank consistently orchestrated a simple communication strategy, over time, to become relevant to the needs of the middle-market consumer, driving significant growth for Nedbank's retail division and resulting in superior and sustained financial performance.

Read here for more on the 2016 APEX award winners.