The thinking behind eftpos' brand refresh and marketing strategy

Better understanding the needs, wants and behaviours of Australia’s misunderstood millennials lies at the heart of eftpos’ marketing strategy as it works to reposition the debit payments brand in market.

Speaking to CMO following the debut of the company’s new brand identity and a fresh brand campaign, eftpos head of brand and marketing, Anthony Dumont, said it had become clear the businesses needed to better demonstrate its credentials in the increasingly digitised and mobilised payments space.

Australia-owned eftpos has been transforming its product offering over the last 18 months to move from a predominantly card-based business at point-of-sale to a digital business. The transformation is supported by two key acquisitions in 2020: Digital wallets provider, Beem It, in November; and ConnectID, which verifies an individual’s ID at the touch of a button. The latter went into trials with Australia Post last year.

Released earlier this year, eftpos’ 2021 product roadmap update now highlights a series of initiatives and enhancements aimed at lifting its digital capabilities. These include in-app payments, enhanced fraud protection, a digital identity network, mobile wallets, a QR code acceptance and experience platform, APIs and fintech access, and eftpos online payments (ecommerce).

“As our business changes and moves in the world of digital payments, our brand strategy needed to reflect that,” Dumont said.

Re-evaluating the target consumer

The first step was a payments-focused UNA segmentation to understand which key cohorts are shaping and driving behaviours around the payments space. Conducted in June and July 2020, the exercise sought to reflect on where people had been in the past but also where they were going moving forward.

While it’s generally believed millennials are driving the digital economy and payments innovation, Dumont suggested just categorising its target audience as millennials “was a lazy way of targeting people”.

“We needed a UNA segmentation that was very payments focused to understand drivers from a payments and money perspective, as well as from an everyday life perspective,” he explained.  

“Through our research, what we were trying to do is get to the needs and wants of the audience we want to engage with. And those haven’t really changed – how you deliver them has, but the needs and wants haven’t. For example, there’s a desire for speed, simplicity and ease even as you give consumers lots of choice, safety, plus a desire for experiences over things.”

Off the back of this, two key cohorts are now in eftpos’ sights – the ‘fashionably modern’, and ‘hassle free’. Dumont said both are driven by technology and the latest ways of better managing their money and represent about 50 per cent of the total market.

Credit: Eftpos

“There is this misunderstanding around millennials – they’re seen as lazy, spend too much, are mortgage avoiders, and invented the concept of the bank of mum and dad. But when you look at the data and research out there, it’s clear their priorities are shaped by their financial challenges,” Dumont commented.

“What we found from the UNA was the younger cohort, which we call ‘fashionably modern’ and of which 50 per cent are millennial based, want less financial stress and don’t want to go into debt for everyday purchases.  As a use your own money business, we can tap into some of those behaviours.”  

Another interesting insight for Dumont was that what defines happiness and contentment for this audience is frought with tension.

“They want the adult world – such as a university degree – and they want a steady job, family time and their first home. But on the flip side, these consumers want the freedom of the young world – they don’t want to be constrained by a system, and they want to enjoy experiences. They want to live within means but in the fullest way possible,” he said. “I don’t think brands are marketing to them in a way that gives them that credit.”

Eftpos’ fresh brand identity and strategy was launched in March and involves both a more digitally friendly logo as well as colour palette and look. At time of launch, eftpos CEO, Stephen Benton, described the ‘e’ in the new-look eftpos branding as a dynamic, energetic visual cue to emphasise a fresh, distinctive and meaningful representation of the way busy Australians live their lives.

“Visually, we’re reflecting that move into digital – we are getting more provisions into Apple Pay, so that becomes a customer choice, hence why we’re in market talking about what we offer so consumers actively choose us in their mobile wallet. The new branding also reflects better in QR codes than we did previously,” Dumont said.  

The supporting ‘Your money, well spent’ brand campaign kicked off on 28 March nationally and is running in a mix of channels, with the first piece focused on out-of-home and employing data points to better target delivery. There is also YouTube and BVOD advertising as well as social activity, and work is underway on an influencer campaign plus native advertising campaign with Pedestrian.

Dumont said the fresh creative is all about celebrating how choosing eftpos can help consumers stay on top of their day-to-day money, spend wisely on everyday things and live a fuller life within their financial means.

Longer-term, the new brand identity will be rolled out across point-of-sale nationally, as well as more than 50 million cards and hundreds of thousands of eftpos acceptance marks displayed by merchants nationally. The visual brand identity overhaul was conducted in partnership with brand agency, Hulsbosch, while the campaign activity has been plotted out with Richard Rose.  

Purpose to do good

Another string to the brand bow for Dumont is eftpos’ clear purpose, which is being articulated through the brand campaign. “Purpose continues to be poorly articulated by most brands I would say – they talk about what they do, not why you do it,” he claimed.

“We have a clear distinct and powerful purpose, which is to do good for Australia. That’s been since we were invented in 1984.

“The way we deliver that promise is we help them live a full life within their means. That is because we are use your own money, you can stay on top of your money with real-time balance, you can now pay as you go in mobile wallet, we’re partnering with loyalty providers to get more from your money, and we are a safer way to pay thanks to tokenisation as well as digital ID as it’s rolled out in coming months.”

For merchant customers, Dumont said eftpos is looking to tap into the desire to unlock more commercial value with less effort and noted it’s one of the cheaper alternatives for debit payments, with savings of up to 40 per cent. “That’s a powerful message in this market,” he said.

“With ConnectID, we’re offering a safer to pay. And with our loyalty partnerships, if we get the analytics right, we can add further value to their businesses.”

The next step for Dumont is to bring eftpos’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) platform around mental health to life.

“We won’t go and plant trees - we don’t impact that footprint. But we can help people with mental health as we know that can be driven by the stress of financial management,” he said of its emphasis. “We are Australia-based, which further fuels our purpose and role we play.”

The first iteration of the brand campaign is running until the end of June. Key messages are around better day-to-day money management, staying safer in the digital economy, and eventually, how young Australians are doing it mentally tough, and eftpos’ partners.

Measures of success for Dumont include raising awareness and consideration and getting people to select eftpos in their mobile wallet. Brand tracking also focuses on improving the number of consumers regularly using its offering in the last four weeks and becoming brand of choice. Hard metrics include provisioning and use in the mobile wallet, transactions, and engagement in verticals of everyday usage. Dumont labelled these “feel me, entertain me, and top me up”.

Eftpos’ debit card system was used in more than 2 billion debit card transactions during 2020 were worth more than $300 million each day.

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