NAB’s latest ad campaign – getting nasty?

Originally NAB came up with a brilliant campaign to differentiate themselves from the other mainstream banks in Australia with a campaign called “The Breakup”.

I really liked it, but they haven’t really followed it through as their next campaign was good, but completely unrelated to The Breakup. 

This one was all about trying to get a viral campaign going thorugh using honesty as a theme.

Having said that, their Breakup website does reinforce the theme and message.

So I’ll be interested to see what their latest campaign’s impact is, when it premiers on Monday.

It’s theme is Being Lockedin, and targets mortgages specifically where, once taken, they’re very hard to break out of.

This is illustrated by the first of two ads, where first time buyers are shown what it’s like to be locked in ...

… literally. 

It seems a bit nasty and miserable, but nowhere near as nasty as the creepy sensation you get as watch the other ad, called The Job Interview.

I get the message with these two ads, but wonder whether folks might find them a bit too creepy to want to see a bank that literally locks them in, even though they’re trying to send the opposite message.

We’ll see.