As the marketing battle between the big four banks heats up, Mark Bouris' financial group Yellow Brick Road has fired its own salvo into the fray with an ad campaign that bashes the big players with a wooden bat.
The campaign was created by independents DCB Advertising and 12:20 and was turned around in a matter of days.
It has followed a deal between Yellow Brick Road and Macquarie Bank which will see the company taking on the big four in the residential home loan market with a mortgage rate 100 points lower than anything currently on offer.
The deal was revealed last week, with Bouris saying at the time that the big four banks were in his sights.
Bouris told AdNews: "Why do people whinge and complain but don't actually do anything about it? That's largely because there hasn't really been a competitor out there who has offered an interest rate low enough to make people move.
"Everybody keeps talking about the big four banks all the time. People actually believe that there is only four banks, there are four lenders out there. While NAB carries on about how they're going to have the lowest interest rates, they are only three basis points lower than the other banks, so it is not worth even looking at leaving. No-one has actually presented a price at this stage which makes it worthwhile leaving.
"I know this from my Wizard days if the interest rate is low enough, people will go there. So we have purposely pitched the rate low enough for people to swap. That is the bottom line. We know that 5.5% with an on going rate of 5.7% is a really low interest rate compared to the banks and what their interest rates are at 6.5%.
"We are 100 basis points lower in the first year. That is a huge saving - the likes of three Reserve Bank movements. We are making it pretty clear it is a huge saving. We don't say that but the punters will know.
"It is not really apathy or lethargy on Australians part. It's because you don't really know where the choices are."
The TV commercial shows angry consumers bashing a pinata shaped like a big bank.
The campaign rolled out last night and will be followed up with press, print, digital, social.
The ad comes in the wake of increasingly heated marketing competition between the big four banks in recent years, with different players launching new major brand plays and spending big dollars on marketing.
National Australia Bank launched its 'Break Up' campaign in early 2011 to a great deal of industry fanfare, while Commonwealth Bank's 'Can' push from earlier this year has also been the subject of intense industry attention.
ANZ has also rolled out a new positioning, while pundits have suggested that Westpac has been slightly behind the other three in terms of marketing.
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