The Bank of New Zealand and Colenso BBDO have installed a glass-walled house filled with $6 million of shredded bank notes in Aotea Square to highlight the amount of home loan interest being wasted by New Zealand homeowners.
The ‘6 Million Dollar House’ represents how much home loan interest New Zealanders pay every four hours and the aim of the campaign is to start a conversation about the money that can be easily saved.
Colenso sourced the shredded cash that was slated for destruction due to wear and tear from the Reserve Bank.
BNZ chief marketing officer Craig Herbison says the bank believes that New Zealanders are wasting millions of dollars in unnecessary home loan interest and more is required to educate home owners.
“As a leader in the banking sector, BNZ is going to do something about this,” he says. “One way BNZ can help New Zealanders to be good with money is by educating them on ways they can shred their home loan interest and become mortgage-free sooner. Just making small increases in your home loan repayments can make a huge difference to the total interest you end up paying over the life of a home loan.”
To drive the conversation people were given the chance to play with $156,000 of shredded cash so they could talk about what that amount meant to them.
The amount was not coincidental; BNZ’s Tailored Home Loan can help to shred up to $156,000 of interest off a $300,000 home loan, in comparison to a standard 30-year table loan, by making small increases every year in repayments.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in shredded cash was also sent out in DM packs to bank customers and displayed in BNZ stores throughout the country.
“BNZ’s mission is to help New Zealanders be good with money – being good with your home loan is an important part of that,” said Colenso BBDO/Proximity Creative Director Wayne Pick.
“We were stunned at the amount that New Zealanders were spending in home loan interest, and genuinely surprised at the big six figure sum that could be saved with a BNZ tailored home loan. It called for a campaign that could really start to change the conversation about home loans, and make a real difference for people.
“Getting our hands on millions of dollars in shredded cash seemed like an audacious plan, but it’s been fun seeing it become reality; with the team running around with bags of money and meeting in empty warehouses as we figured out how to bag it and work with it.”
Colenso BBDO executive producer Paul Courtney flew to the Reserve Bank in Wellington and personally helped to bag up millions of dollars in cash that had been removed from circulation and shredded. The cash was then bundled into vans and driven to Auckland for use in the campaign.
The campaign features TV, print, digital display, direct mail, in-store, social media and ambient elements.
Colenso partnered with Rollercoaster to construct the 6 Million Dollar House public installation, and worked with Kinetic and NZ Post to package and dispatch hundreds of thousands of dollars in shredded cash via direct mail.
The TVC spot, Shredded Money, was directed by Alex Roberts for Finch. It was shot in an empty warehouse in Auckland, with the talent being given free rein to play with $156,000 in shredded cash.
“We are very grateful to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand for letting us have access to this amount of cash,” said Pick. “No money was shredded specifically for the campaign – it was all money that had been taken out of circulation and was already scheduled for shredding.
“Once the campaign is over, it will be appropriately recycled.”
CREDITS
Agency: Colenso BBDO
Creative Chariman: Nick Worthington
Creative Director: Wayne Pick
Business Director: Sarah Williams
Group Account Director: Jillian Stanton
Executive Producer: Paul Courtney
Planning Director: David McCallen
Senior CRM Planner: Angela Legge
PR: Louise Wright – Porter Novelli
Client: Bank of New Zealand
BNZ Chief Marketing Officer: Craig Herbison
BNZ Head of Marketing Communications: Rob Cooke
BNZ Communications Manager: Marcia Masters
BNZ External Relations Manager: Emily Davies
Production Company: FINCH
Director: Alex Roberts – FINCH
Producer: Rebekah Kelly – FINCH
Sound Design: Shane Taipari – Franklin Rd
DOP / Cinematographer: Aaron Morton
Grade: Pete Richie
Editor: Julian Currin
Online Editor: (visual effects Andrew Timms – Beryl
Post Production (VFX Co.): Beryl
Music: Artist / Title Jonathan Dreyfus / Woodcock
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