Tangerine claims to be the first Canadian bank to run contextual pre-roll ads on YouTube for a campaign that centers around mobile banking, showing the growing opportunities for banks to leverage media in acquiring new customers.

Tangerine’s campaign is the second part of a bigger rebranding effort from Tangerine with the new part highlighting the bank’s actual products. The bank also plans to leverage its recently-launched responsive site to acquire new customers with mobile ads that can be saved so that consumers can learn more about the brand after seeing the ads on a smartphone or tablet.

“Now that our Web site is responsive, we’ll be utilizing mobile ads for the first time to help acquire new customers,” said Andrew Zimakas, chief marketing officer at Tangerine, Toronto.

“The mobile ads will also allow potential new clients to be reminded of the offer later, should they not want to complete the application at the time they clicked the ad,” he said.

Tangerine — formerly ING Direct Canada — has more than 1.9 million clients and nearly $38 million in total assets.

Ramping up mobile awareness
The campaign is the second part of a bigger rebranding effort from Tangerine with the new part highlighting the bank’s actual products. The bank worked with agency john st. on the campaign.

Tangerine claims to be upping its television spend 70 percent than previous campaigns with an ad that focuses on mobile banking.

The bank did not break out the budget for digital specifically for this campaign, but said that the medium typically makes up 20 percent of marketing spend.

A minute-long video shows two different people waiting at a train station that need to deposit a check within one hour. While the two commuters race to make it to the bank in time, a third consumer on the train uses Tangerine’s mobile application to make a deposit on the spot.

The pre-roll YouTube ads claim to be contextual because they will target consumers who search for keywords that are common but not specifically related to financial topics. The intent-based targeting will also apply to search marketing.

Other components of the campaign include out of home and print.

Touting simplicity
In another example of how banks are promoting mobile to acquire new digital bankers, regional bank FirstBank is launching a new TV spot promoting that spoofs Google Glass and the growing interest around wearables.

The 30-second spot’s slogan is “Get back to the real world,” and features a family of four sitting at a dinner table. Each person has a pair of tech glasses strapped on, and are too distracted by what they are looking at to notice the other members of the family.

For example, the dad in the commercial tries to block pop-up ads while bookmarking a news article to read later. Meanwhile, his wife tries to serve food, but keeps missing the plates because she cannot see around the glasses.

FirstBank’s TV ad

A call-to-action at the end of the ad reads, “The FirstBank Mobile App. Technology has never been so easy.”

The TV ads will run through the remainder of 2014 on broadcast networks and 20 cable stations, including ESPN and USA Network.

FirstBank is also working with Specific Media, Quantcast and Rocket Fuel to distribute the video content to mobile devices. The spot was created in conjunction with agency TDA Boulder.

The privately held, Colorado-based bank also ran a location-based mobile advertising campaign last fall to specifically target small business owners (see story).

The TV spot hits on how mobile banking has become table stakes for financial institutions.

At the same time that banks continue to test new types of technology and features, FirstBank instead wants to play up the basic mobile banking features that consumers are using on a consistent basis.

Integrating mobile into TV ads has become a go-to tactic for the majority of big financial brands, including Wells Fargo, Chase and Citi.

“The ad is meant to show that FirstBank’s app reflects the company’s forward-thinking vision and unrivaled customer service,” said Brian Jensen, senior vice president of marketing at FirstBank, Lakewood, Co.

“Equally important, it’s very user friendly, which means you can quickly and easily conduct your banking on your own time and get on with your day,” he said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York