Capital One

A relatively new player in the Canadian financial services playground, Capital One wanted to dramatically build brand awareness relative to the Big Five and online banks. The strategy was based on insight that while Canadians are loyal customers, they view the big five banks in rather unfavourable terms. Enter Capital One, the champion of credit card holders frustrated by big banks and high interest rates, a positioning that began with former AOR Lowe Roche's “Hands in my pockets” work.

DDB envisioned the big banks’ greed as a problem that called for pest control. The resulting creative included three 30-second TV spots featuring homes infested with “vermin” – greedy, middle-aged bankers in various money-grubbing scenarios including rattling piggy banks and searching under couch cushions. Says the exterminator surveying the scene: “Yep, you’ve got bankers.” He then goes on to explain the benefits of switching to Capital One.

The campaign also got results. The Canadian norm for the Millward-Brown Awareness Index (AI) is 5; two of the “Exterminator” spots received AI scores of 9 and 8 respectively. Capital One also received high unaided brand awareness scores: an increase of 7% following the launch of the campaign (from 20% to 27%). Consideration increased by 4% (from 9% to 13%) – double the objective of 2%. In less than two years, brand awareness has gone from 0 to 91%. And, based on the campaign’s success, three new follow-up ads began running this fall.