The new Brian Blessed campaign is the first fruit for a coalition between marketing director Roger Beaumont, and its new agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Beaumont said the choice of big booming Blessed was part of a traditional nuanced premise that New Zealanders undersell themselves. "The ads are quite mad," said Beaumont.
Blessed is not the typical young pretty character that feature in a lot of brand ads.
"No. but he is incredibly endearing - and he has a bit of retro cool attached to him," said Beaumont.
"What really convinced us about the direction of the campaign was the sense enthusiasm and fun."
Indeed, in a past commercial outing for Blessed he was the voice of the "TomTom" where he developed a cultish following.
"Brian's observations of New Zealand as a culture we are quite modest and understated and we need to bang the drum a little bit," Beaumont said.
"The Goldstein campaign proved New Zealanders really love external perspectives and people coming over and saying good things about us. It needed that to show a sense of under-statedness," he said.
"And Brian Blessed can but put a smile on your face that really resonates with the brand," Beaumont said. Beaumont does not want to debate the short lived experiment with Droga 5.
ASB was a cornerstone account and Droga 5 wound up after ASB moved to Saatchi & Saatchi.
"The previous team made a decision to move on from Goldstein and the old campaign was a reflection of where the brand was at after the global financial crisis. This is a broader brand campaign - it will give us a consistency of voice telling the ASB story and the way we celebrate success," Beaumont said.
Upheavals and changes were part of wider change in bank advertising with most banks changing partners at a time when the National Bank brand was being closed down.
