heartharmony.com.au

One of the cleverest marketing strategies of recent times was completed by Wizard Homes Loans last week. Australia has had years of increases to mortgage interest rates – initially only when the Reserve Bank raised the rates to put the brakes on the economy, but in the last 12 month banks and home lenders had been increasing their rates independent of the Reserve Bank.

This week it is widely tipped the Reserve Bank will drop interest rates, which should mean home lenders will follow suit all things being equal.

However, Wizard decided to drop their rates 5 days before the Reserve Bank officially have dropped theirs. They combined this with a very calculated press release campaign to the media.

The media storm that has followed their announcement is worth millions in free press. Every current affairs show, TV bulletin and newspaper has trumpeted Wizard – generally with front page coverage. They have demanded the other banks match Wizard’s move, but the other banks have been noticeably shy of doing that (which meant Wizard garnered another few days of free publicity denouncing their competitors).

What is the marketing lesson? By doing what you were going to do anyway, but doing it earlier than everyone else, and telling everyone what you have done, there is great potential for taking the moral high ground (and gaining massive publicity in the process).

Wizard will be able to use their strategy in marketing for years to come – “first to drop rates when the others didn’t” comes to mind.

What a great lesson in marketing!

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

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