Ok with being number two.
Jacaranda Finance has launched ‘When the bank says no, give us a go’, ok with being people's second choice.
The online digital lender's television campaign is a play on its brand identity.
The work aims to solidify Jacaranda’s reputation as the next-best choice for people whose credit application for a car or personal loan up to $25,000 has been rejected by mainstream lenders.
Jacaranda Finance head of growth Matthew Wong said the team has continued to evolve understanding of customer base over the past decade.
"It’s a learning process that has allowed us to bring a laser-sharp focus to our value offering, which is to be No.1 at being No.2," he said.
"We’re proud to be able to serve as the best back-up option for everyday Australians who need finance but are rejected by the banks. That’s why the time felt right to take our creative in a new direction."
Wong said the ethos behind the television commercial wasn’t about trying to compete with the banks, but about educating customers that there was another way to seek personal or car finance if their initial lender of choice said "no".
“Without getting too technical, a lot of banks use rigid, predefined rules based on credit scores to determine whether a consumer qualifies for a loan. This can unfairly exclude a lot of responsible customers," he said.
"At Jacaranda Finance, however, we’ve developed an advanced scoring system that takes into account people’s current and recent financial behaviour, based on their bank transactions."
Bespoken managing director Sarah Morgan said the new call to action of ‘give us a go’ emerged organically during a taxi ride after a meeting with the Jacaranda team.
“The thing we couldn’t stop talking about was the markedly different approach to assessing credit applications, and the fact that Jacaranda – from CEO Daniel Wessels down – was incredibly keen to draw that sharp delineation to traditional finance and its strong reliance on credit scores,” she said.
“A lot of Jacaranda’s outreach had been focused on their value-adds, such as their free education program to help people improve their credit score. However, we saw the freshest opportunity as the core message to everyday Australians that banks are not the start and close of the lending conversation."
The Little Rogue creative director Tim Harding encouraged the campaign’s stakeholders to push the envelope in translating their message into something unforgettable.
"Jacaranda’s business model is built on disruption, so it made sense their creative should also look to disrupt the environment in which it would land – one where people’s attention is often split across multiple sources of interest and information,” he said.
"We knew we would only have a small window in which to seize their attention, and that meant it had to be high impact from the get-go."
The 15-second ad begins with three seconds of death-metal-worthy screaming.
The TV commercial will air in metropolitan and regional markets along the east coast before extending to other channels including out-of-home, radio and digital.
