Commonwealth Bank’s recent brand platform ‘Doubt Never Did‘ has flipped a familiar marketing truth on its head, by asking if that uneasy, uncertain emotion brands often try to bury could actually be the key to building trust.
Speaking on a panel at SXSW Sydney, Dianne Everett, general manager of brand, partnerships, and creative at CommBank said Australians are facing unprecedented uncertainty, and despite being a shared experience, doubt is not something commonly discussed.
“This little word, doubt. What an insipid, dirty little world,” she joked. “I would actually bet my bottom dollar that we are unified by all cutting moments of it, it’s a word that not only unites marketers in a room, it unifies humanity.”
The brand platform embraces vulnerability with a double-negative rally cry of sorts. To test the waters, it started as street posters of the word “doubt”, which 24 hours later, were crossed out to read “do it”.
“Our goal was to make doubt a little bit of a talking point, a way of normalising what we all share… and this thinking culminated in this platform,” Everett explained.
For Emma Robbins, chief creative officer of M+C Saatchi Melbourne, CommBank’s creative agency partner, the idea of chasing discomfort was always deliberate.
“Comfort kills creativity,” she stressed. “If you’re coming up with an idea and you feel comfortable with it… there’s a problem with it. And what we felt presenting this idea of doubt, we were nervous.
“We were nervous about how it would land, we were nervous it was language CommBank hadn’t used before, we were nervous about how it would go up the chain, and also how it would be received by the public.”
But the three words – doubt never did – wrapped so beautifully around each other, she argued, and around a human truth that people are tired of comparing themselves to others, and dreams look different for everybody.
“I think what we love most about it is it’s not a product truth for CommBank, it’s a human truth. It works inside the brand, it works outside the brand, and for Australia, it sums people up to a T,” Robbins said.
Beyond advertising, CommBank has transformed the idea into a national engagement program, particularly for regional areas. Its “Doubt Never Did” bus tour has travelled to a number of towns including Wagga Wagga, connecting with more than 200,000 Australians providing financial literacy and scam awareness.
“We’re super pumped about what it means to take grassroots financial literacy out into the nation, and we’re deeply committed to it,” Everett said.
Everett and Robbins were joined on the panel by media personality and journalist Georgie Tunny, who said from an outsider perspective, seeing a brand embrace something each and every person experiences, was great.
“There’s an argument that the antidote to doubt is trust, so for you to trust me and want to go on this journey together, I have to give something up of myself for you,” she said, reflecting on her experience of interviewing vulnerable people as a journalist.
“I’ve been a people-pleaser from the womb, and I feel like brands are the ultimate people-pleasers. So it’s great to see that experience reflected by such a big one.”