Fitch unveils premium brand for HSBC
Fitch has worked on the branding and strategy for HSBC Advance, a new paid-for banking service from HSBC targeted at what the client calls the ‘emerging mass affluent’ sector.
It has been involved in the project as part of Team HSBC, a group of WPP companies servicing the bank, which also includes ad agency JWT and marketing consultancy Mindshare.
Fitch managing partner Lucy Unger says the consultancy has been working on the project for around a year, and that it grew out of previous briefs Team HSBC carried out for the HSBC Premier service.
She says research undertaken for the HSBC Premier, which targets affluent customers, highlighted the emerging mass affluent market, which Unger defines as professionals in their 30s who could eventually become HSBC Premier customers.
Team HSBC has created the strategic positioning and naming for HSBC Advance, while communications are being developed by the agencies that make up the group.
Unger says, ‘This was a very strong collaboration between the client and Team HSBC. Fitch and JWT worked to set the strategic platform, and create a common look and feel for the service.’
HSBC Advance is set to roll out in 30 countries over the next year, launching first in Hong Kong and becoming available in the UK this week.
So we can assume in future we replace ‘Current…’ with ‘Deficit-‘ account and ‘Savings…’ with ‘Affluent’. And graduates with ‘Un-account-able’?
There was me thinking today’s Retirees were the only consumers worth targetting…
I happen to have one of these re-branded accounts (originally HSBC Plus) myself. The whole execution is shockingly appalling in terms of look and feel and unbelievably patronising in terms of tone. The new customer pack includes two of your own ‘cut out and keep’ important phone number contact cards on the reverse of which is a shot of either one of the generic male / female photos for one to choose from. I’d expect ten times better than this from an A-level student
Seriously? Being a Plus customer myself, I’ll be checking an even more annoyingly campaigned moneysupermarket.com for the next available alternative. This is a terrible example of how not to treat a target group and should go in the ‘lessons learned’ file with Dells infamous pink laptops for..erm…well…ladies of course. Fitch should head over to Heathrow, have a good look at their Harrods work at T5 and remember what they are good at.