By Seun Bisuga

As a public relations, advertising and marketing spectacle Sterling Bank succeeded in selling itself to prospective and existing customers while slaying its competition by telling them that they could become stars while aiming for the moon.

The projection of Sterling Bank’s logo also shows that they are way ahead of competition in banking and technology terms while the others are on ground trying to grapple with ways to ascend. “In shooting for the moon men become stars,” Sterling Bank wrote with the catch phrase Welcome to #SterlingBank.

For those of us domiciled in Nigeria, we can kinda agree that the advert does not tell the true story of the banks because Sterling Bank isn’t rated in the same breathe as Union Bank, First Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank and Access Bank but they got one on their competition with that ad.

They got the public relations stunt, they got their name on almost all websites for free, they got social media influencers writing about the ad and mentioning their name for free, they got prospective customers clicking on their website, they marketed their treasury bills amongst other products.

Sterling Bank trended at number one on Twitter and got new followers. Add over 1500 retweets, over 3000 likes and hundreds of thousands of impressions. And they got all this in the bag for free. Not that I like their approach but it kinda worked this time, mainly because no one saw it coming.

How Did Other Banks React

For starters, the other banks saw it as a beef, they chose to clapback with emotions rather than creativity. They chose to reply with sentiments instead of approaching it as an advertising opportunity to reach customers on Twitter because many users were drooling over the #BankWars.

FIRST BANK

First Bank’s response was reflective of the African mentality of “Se o mo age mi ni”. The bank threw age and elders sentiment into it demanding respect from Sterling because they think they had earned it. But when it comes to creativity there are no elders, what we have are brains, approach, ideas and delivery; all which First Bank’s response provided little.

Here’s First Bank’s response, “What an elder sees while sitting, a child cannot see even if he travels to the moon. #RespectYourElders #YouFirst

Not satisfied First Bank tweeted a GIF of a rocket crashing right from the skies. The GIF had the inscription: “Mr Burns Groaning.”

Both their responses were not top notch and although they got retweets and likes, it was not because of its creativity it was because they were the first to reply and Twitter users wanted more from this new series.

VERDICT

I’d score First Bank 5 on a scale of 1-10. They didn’t have to respond very quickly and with little creativity. I guess it’s a lesson learnt for the leading Nigerian bank now.

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