Battle of Mortgage Campaigns: ING Direct vs TD Bank
It is the semi-finals of the Ratehub.ca Bank Battle Series where we search for the best mortgage campaign. We’re almost in the finals, where Scotiabank patiently waits for its challenger to emerge from either Canadian powerhouse bank, TD Bank or from the new kid on the block, ING Direct. What the judges are looking for is how well these two banks target the mortgage market with TV commercials.
According to Canadian mortgage statistics, the current mortgage market contains 1 trillion CAD in residential debt, where the average mortgage size is close to $150,000. That means the mortgage industry is big business, especially in Canada which has maintained a healthy real estate environment for growth. According to CAAMP, mortgage credit should increase another 8% this year. Let’s take a look at what ING Direct and TD are doing to attract those mortgage customers.
Contenders
In the red corner: Wearing orange, ING Direct
In the blue corner: Wearing green, TD Bank.
VIDEO CAMPAIGNS:
TD Marketing Videos:
Pre-Approval
Long Term
TD Team
ING Direct’s Marketing Videos:
“Slow-motion”
“The Un-mortgage”
THOUGHTS:
ING Direct does a great job of making their unique approach effective. They’ve branded their mortgage products as the “un-mortgage”. The message they are trying to get across is this: “this isn’t your typical mortgage, if you want to be mortgage debt free faster, then ING Direct will help you get there.” Both their commercials focus on the how consumers can utilize mortgage prepayment options to their advantage. The TV spots are quick and they get their message across even quicker.
As for TD Bank, they’ve taken the time to build familiarity with their public by preserving the theme (First-time homebuyer FAQs) of their TV commercials and re-using the same set of actors. With their TV spots, they decided to create a longer running mortgage campaign
CURRENT MORTGAGE RATES:
Here are their respective 5-year fixed rates and 5-year variable rates. These two financial institutions do a great job of marketing their product and now we’ll take a look at how some of those actual products stack up against each other.
Rates as of October 18, 2011
Conclusion:
As a relative newcomer to the Canadian banking scene, ING Direct needs to be aggressive to make an impact since they are at a disadvantage with loyalty and public familiarity. And clearly they are, as they have the best bank mortgage rates available according to Ratehub.ca. We can tell that both banks place great emphasis on the mortgage market in the quantity of commercial ads they produce. But in this case, more was better. TD Bank revealed their determination to get their name across as the top dog in the mortgage biz.
THE WINNER:
THE TOURNAMENT RECAP
