trust – Johnny Lyle's new brand thinking

Brand Experience, brand values, branding, Economics, Life, Social media

Natwest Member benefits that have no value

With Natwest as a Black Account customer, you and your family members that live with you have such valuable cover

I have been with Natwest bank since my first day at University in 1984. My business banks with them too and so do all my family members based on my own previous good experience. I have paid extra for the ‘benefits’ of the Black Account at a cost of £24 per month for years and years, having been transferred over from the previous Private Banking Account, which I paid £200 per year for before that. I guess you could call me a loyal customer. So you would hope for some loyalty in return right? Err, wrong.

As you can see above, on the very front of the Natwest member Benefits site it says

Just one of the benefits of your Black Account
We rely on our mobile phones so much these days, it’s comforting to know as a Black Account customer, you and your family members that live with you have such valuable cover. With Black Account mobile phone insurance, your mobile or smart phone is covered against loss, theft, unauthorised use, damage or breakdown, wherever you are in the world.
You’re automatically covered but if your phone is registered, it may make the process quicker if you have to make a claim. Cover is for a maximum of four phones owned by you and family members.

But this simply isn’t the case. It turns out that unless you read the fine print, your family living at home are only covered if they are still in full time education.

My daughter who has finished her A levels and still has an open and unconditional offer to study Photography in Nottingham is not considered as being a member of my family as she was starting work the next day, despite still being 18 years old and living at home.

The rejection letter from Aviva Natwest and Carphone Whorehouse

The ‘Benefit’ is administered by both Aviva and Carphone Whorehouse and despite having spoken to all of them, the claim is still being rejected.

It’s not surprising that people have little time and zero respect for banks as the brand they portray behaves completely differently to the one they live. You can’t trust banks and it seems you can’t trust insurance companies. And with a Five Star Defaqto rating, it makes me wonder whether they can be trusted too.

Updated 05.07.15

So, social media works if you want to get huge multinational companies cave in and start behaving reasonably. It does still trouble me that it is only those that shout the very loudest who get some form of justice, but in this case, Natwest, Aviva and Carphone Whorehouse have backed down and paid the claim for a new iPhone. Thank you – Particularly to Andy at Aviva Support. Now do us all a favour and change your policy to be more reasonable and cover all family members – or change your advertising to make it clear it is only for under 23’s in full time employment.

brand values, branding

Waitrose, Tesco, trust and horse burgers

Horses wouldn’t be served at Waitrose, because we trust them and it’s in their values

I did a workshop at Nottingham Trent University yesterday and one of the key points I wanted to get across was brands who work with very focussed brand values have clearer marketing messages. More than this, they have clearer business propositions and it would seem to me that they are ultimately more successful as businesses too.

Take two companies, Tesco and Waitrose.

Tesco brands says ‘Every little helps’. What this says to me is that they chip away and chip away at every tiny little cost to try and drive the price down to one that is almost unsustainable by the supplier. I’m not saying I agree with them throwing a horse in with the beef to make a value burger, but I do think it may have de-specced the product to such a degree they just needed to add the protein to get them to the 63% meat content that their recipe demands (which is higher than Birds Eye’s Value burgers 45% meat!), so really, what do we expect?

A horse didn’t just fall into that beef vat by accident. Someone threw it in, knowing they needed to add some cheap meat to make up the weight of their consignment. That’s supplier desperation in action.

Waitrose work on the core brand value of ‘Trust” and for me, this comes trough everywhere. I just don’t believe they would buy their meat on the open market, without knowing where it came from. I trust them. For me, they have almost become curators of good food choice. If they sell it, then we know it’s going to be pretty good – certainly for supermarket food and we can be pretty sure it won’t contain horse.

It’s too easy to take pot shots at the giant that is Tesco, but they deserve it in this case. Their values are wrong and too many of us care about what we eat for them to remain as the force they are now. They need to change their values, change their brand behaviour to be a little more loveable and change the way they treat their suppliers. Or, they’re off……

branding

Helping our clients business fly – or is it the other way around?

We ask our clients to put a lot of trust in our advice when they go through a rebrand, but its not often that the favour is so completely repaid.

Well it was today – In some style.

The client, Ed Lennox from Feefo is a very keen pilot and as we were meeting at Wellesbourne Airfield in Warwickshire where he is a member of the flying club, he offered to take me for a few spins around the airfield.

Never having been in a four seater plane before, I was obviously scared off my head, but having just read ‘Yes Man‘ by Danny Wallace (A great book and well worth a read), I was forced to say yes, even though I’m a bit scared of heights!

Anyway, the following pictures prove we went up in 30 mile an hour gusts and flew out over Stratford on Avon.

Brilliant Fun and I’m not scared anymore.

If you fancy joining yourself, this is the link to the Flying Club.

Updated 05.07.15

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