Goodby ads on target

Commonwealth Bank's two-and-a-half week old advertising campaign, with the tagline "determined to be different" is achieving its objectives, researching well and suits the bank's current business structure and priorities; or so chief executive Ralph Norris argued yesterday.

The widely ridiculed campaign - for which two television advertisements have so far made the small screen - is "laced with irony [and] laced with humour" Norris told yesterday's media briefing.

No shortage of advertising industry commentators, including John Singleton, the scion of CBA's former advertising agency STW, have rubbished the initial advertisements and in somewhat xenophobic terms, given the predominantly Kiwi-trained executives running retail banking and marketing at the bank these days and the creative crew from American agency Goodby Silverstein that snared CBA's advertising contract last year.

Norris suggested yesterday that the first advertisements, and the local industry reaction, are in line with the bank's and Goody's planning.

The first advertisements, Norris said, "do everything we thought it would do. We knew the Aussie advertising industry would go feral."

The first ads, he said, "have created the greatest awareness of a new advertising campaign in a long, long time …. It's achieving its objectives. We'll see a lot more interesting [ads] over time."