MLC reinforces its own brand

MLC has launched a new advertising campaign dismissing any speculation that its brand was going to be absorbed under the greater National Australia Bank (NAB) branding umbrella.

“You can clearly say the MLC brand is alive and well and the egg is out there and it’s going to be out there a lot more over the next few months,” MLC chief executive Steve Tucker said.

The new campaign comes hot on the heels of the re-branding exercise undertaken by NAB last month and is a deliberate move to reinforce the message that the NAB group contains two major financial services brands.

“Inside the groups here we’ve recognised and agreed we have two fantastic tier one financial services brands. We have NAB, which stands for great banking products and services, and we have MLC, which really is our wealth brand that stands for investments, superannuation, and insurance,” Tucker said.

“We needed to invest wisely and, while at the same time as re-launching the NAB brand, make sure that MLC’s brand is alive and well, it’s a great brand and provides great services, and these two brands can live and exist side by side,” he added.

Tucker meanwhile has said that NAB and MLC would continue to release joint products throughout the year, such as the NAB mortgage product released last week that contains built-in MLC risk insurance.

The first stage of the MLC marketing campaign includes a television commercial and a series of print media advertisements aimed at encouraging consumers to look at their current financial situation in a positive light in order to get optimal return from their asset base.

“It’s about conveying the message that it doesn’t matter if you’ve got $5 million or $500, you can do something with it and you can look forward to a better future if you do something with it…We didn’t go with the theme of ‘you haven’t got enough for the future, be worried about it’…it’s more about everybody having different circumstances, but if you take the time to make the most of what you’ve got by putting the effort in today, you’ll have a more confident future,” Tucker said.

The campaign’s initial stage is to reconnect consumers with the MLC brand and will be followed with a more extensive second stage encompassing all sections of the media over the next two years.