CommBank cuts marketing spend by 6%

Rachael Micallef
By Rachael Micallef | 10 August 2016
 

The Commonwealth Bank has cut its marketing spend by 6%, according to its full year results.

The figures show its marketing, advertising and loyalty spend for the full year ending 30 June 2016 was $491 million, down from $522 million in the prior year.

For the half year ending 30 June 2016, advertising, marketing and loyalty spend fell 10% to $232 million, from $259 million.

The drop in marketing comes as advertising spend for its New Zealand-based company, ASB Bank, increased year on year.

CommBank's last big marketing push was a nostalgia-heavy piece asking consumers to think back to what they wanted to be as children as part of its wider 'Can' campaign.

In its overall results CommBank saw statutory net profit after tax (NPAT) up 2% to $9.2 billion for the full year, with operating performance increasing 6% to $14.2bn.

In a statement to the market CommBank CEO Ian Narev pointed to customer satisfaction as the key metric it used to benchmark the execution of strategy, “because satisfied customers look to us to meet more of their needs”.

“This year we have achieved our best ever customer satisfaction results, and this has again translated into increased customer activity.”

Narev was referring to Roy Morgan research which found the bank ranked number one for retail customer satisfaction for each month during the financial year, and ranked first or equal first in all key segments of business customer satisfaction at end of year.

In the results, CommBank also pointed to its innovation push, with its Innovation Labs incubator network extending beyond Sydney to include Melbourne, London and Hong Kong. The Innovation Lab is a dedicated space which aims to connect customers, employees and the start-up community to the latest in FinTech development

Other innovations for the group include its 'Instant Banking' product for retail customers which allow new-to-bank customers to transact immediately on open accounts.

For its business customers the bank also continued to roll-out its contactless payment system, Albert EPTPOS tablets, noting there are now more than 40,000 in the market.

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