TD Bank (I think I like cranky old men better)

I was watching Gossip Girl on the CW the other night and a TD Bank advertisement came on. Now I know I’ve seen this ad before but I hadn’t paid much attention, blah blah Regis and Kelly blah blah lower minimum balance… And then I paused, where were my favourite cantankerous old men that scoff at every innovation TD makes? I had only seen them in an advertisement two days ago, and I had seen Regis a week ago…Usually marketers try to have relatively consistent campaigns they want there to be some flow in the commercials, some similarities. And Regis was old but he wasn’t cantankerous. The difference: One campaign was for Americans the other Canadians.

Canadian Campaign:

This is a 2010 commercial but there are 2012 ones running right now.

American Campaign:

It’s refreshing not to be an afterthought in someone’s marketing campaign. But it makes sense, cause TD Bank was a Canadian Bank first. After all their full name is Toronto-Dominion Bank. Like most Canadian banks they have shortened and played with their titles to hide their geographical origins. Maybe the banks just wanted to short their names. However, there is some benefit to being Scotiabank over the Bank of Nova Scotia. There is no denying Scotiabank communicates better to the country as a whole.

One thing that really struck me was that the cost to make the Canadian commercial was way lower than the American commercial. Regis and Kelly do not come cheap. (Although I think Kelly is a bit of a sponsorship whore, she was the face of Electrolux for GE and something else I can’t seem to place.) The answer for the spending difference: Brand Power. In Canada, TD is a well known brand, make a commercial publicize one benefit or two and be done with it. In America, TD Bank doesn’t have that kind of brand power so they have to tap into the brand power of Regis and Kelly through brand association.

Will this strategy work? I’m not very familiar with the US bank environment. Ask me about Canada’s any day and you’ll probably regret you asked. But from what I know about Canadian banking habits: most people bank where their parents banked before them. So they have a battle to gain market share. Are Regis and Kelly the right people? To be honest, in the TD Bank 24/7 commercial I got distracted by their personal drama and didn’t even realize it was TD bank. Watching it with my full attention I realized the TD branded coffee cups and Kelly’s TD green dress. Maybe Regis should have been in TD’s iconic green chair.