The brief for this semester’s deliverables was to create a brand for a new modern bank, with a target audience of 16-25 year-olds. While this is a common age demographic grouping, for me it covers such a wide range of development and changes in a person’s life that to create a brand that spoke to all of them would probably end up as a compromise of different needs. For this reason I decided to specifically look at University students, most university students will fall into the 18-24 age range, so well within the range of the brief.
I feel university students stand out from other sub-groups within the age range by the way they receive money. Most will receive the largest amount of their income from student finance, with possibly a part-time job, money from parents, a scholarship/bursary or a combination of these to supplement that. Student Finance pays money into student accounts in three instalments, usually late September (start of the academic year), January (for the start of second semester) and Easter. This is significantly different than how other people within the 16-25 age range will get their money with most receiving it monthly either as an allowance from parents, or a salary from part-time or full-time work.
This difference is important as most people across all age demographics, will receive their income monthly and most bills are set to coincide with this. Therefore, managing money is different for university students. I will need to research this further but I believe offering help with this as well as the other aspects of life that make being a University student a unique time in a person’s life will give me the opportunity to tailor my brand to a specific group of people.
While this might rule out a selection of potential customers, I feel it will allow me to concentrate on my chosen group (university students) more and appeal to their specific needs and connect with them on an emotional level, which is a key marker of a successful brand.
I started my research by looking at student bank accounts and the advice from Money Saving Expert on the best student accounts available. This advice contained two main takeaways, the need for a high 0% interest overdraft limit and offering some sort of perk or freebie. All the student accounts listed offered some sort of 0% overdraft facility and some included a useful perk. The account rated the best had a good balance of a good 0% overdraft limit and the a perk that could save students a good sum of money. The next best accounts did away with the perk but made up for this with a solid 0% overdraft facility which went higher as each year went by. Below are the top three accounts listed.
Source (https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-bank-account/) Last Accessed 30/01/23
As Santander was the top rated account I decided to go to their own site and see how they advertised and spoke about this account. I found the page for the 123 Student account and it was what I would expect from a bank, very professional, with only some small cartoon illustrations. I would describe it as a bit bland and not very visually stimulating or inspiring. There were lots of quite wordy explanations of financial aspects of the account, which I personally would not read, so it would be interesting to research whether other students would skip this as well. The main points of the account that they advertised were their app to help with spending, offers and rewards and no fees for using Santander cash machines abroad. As they highlighted these as the main points of the account it is clear this is what Santander feel is important to students.
Source (https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/current-accounts/123-student-current-account) Last Accessed 30/01/23
On Santander’s home page I noticed a link to a page about branch closures and thought this might be interesting, it spoke of a large shift to Internet, mobile and telephone banking and how this reduced the need for some branches. This is interesting in considering my own bank brand and whether it should be a fully digital bank.
Source (https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/ways-to-bank/our-branches) Last Accessed 30/01/23
I decided to research this further and see if other banks were doing the same. I found an article from The Mirror that quoted research from Which? that says 5355 bank branches have closed or are scheduled to close since January 2015. The reason given was a widespread shift to online banking making branches redundant.
Source (https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/full-list-bank-closures-coming-28687071)
With traditional high street banks closing branches at such a rate, I decided to look at digital banks with no branches at all, to see what they offered their customers and are they the modern bank which I would be designing a brand for.
A major digital bank is Revolut, they offer a wide array of services including crypto and other financial services. Their website is very different to that of Santander, much more interactive, colourful and fun. There are also some subtle animations and the website is just a lot more enjoyable to visit and browse, a lot less serious than traditional banks equivalents.
The one thing that is the same is the importance placed on their app for controlling your money, this time Revolut place it as the first thing you see on their homepage.