Marketing a challenger bank isn’t easy. The big banks spend a lot of money to keep challengers at bay. Challenger banks have to rely on unique advertising strategies and work with a real point of difference to make their mark.

Up is a challenger bank. A very new challenger bank. It’s doing rather well. Doing especially well with 16-24 year-olds. It now reaches over 185,000 customers and 50% of those are  16 to 24. Savings and transaction account balances are up $172 million, a 414% increase on last year.

It doesn’t have an ad agency to come up with its unique strategy and work with a real point of difference though. It has done that on its own. “It’s an idea we’ve been wanting to do for a couple of years,” stated Anson Parker, head of product at Up.

The campaign features the co-founder’s mum and two members of the Up team. It is running digitally.

“We actually took the photos early in 2019 in our office. Excited to have the work out there in the world.”

The strategy comes from a place no the bank has thought of. “Early on in the Up journey it became apparent to us that a lot of Australians didn’t ever choose their bank. A a lot of the time it was chosen for them by their parents,” Parker continued.

“We wanted to find a way to prompt people into thinking about which bank they’d choose if they really considered the options. Would it be the same bank as their parents? Quite possibly not. The family portrait in matching sweaters is a light-hearted way to highlight this family alignment. There are a few different combinations out there on billboards. We’ll leave it to you to find the meaning behind them.”