METRO BANK LAUNCHES FIRST CAMPAIGN TO EMPOWER SMALL BUSINESSES

Metro Bank today launches a new brand and marketing campaign, demonstrating its commitment to empowering the UK’s small businesses and underlining its highly-rated business banking offering.

This is Metro Bank’s first ever business brand campaign, with radio advertising sitting at the heart of that. The campaign also marks the first time that the Bank has been involved in a publishing partnership, with The Guardian, and will be further supported by an array of digital channels across social media, YouTube, display and paid search. Metro Bank is working in tandem with agency partners Goodstuff and Mr. President to successfully deliver the campaign.

The Bank will be featuring three of its business customers throughout the campaign, giving them an opportunity to showcase their businesses and delve into the close, mutually beneficial relationships they’ve built with Metro Bank. A key advantage for Metro Bank business customers is that they get their own dedicated business manager, who’s there for them every step of the way and on-hand to offer help. Each business manager features alongside their customer in the campaign, reflecting the close connections and friendships created as a result of Metro Bank’s approach.

The three businesses featured are:

In the last year alone, Metro Bank has released a number of technology upgrades specifically designed for businesses. This includes a new SME insurance offering, fresh invoicing capabilities, receipt management upgrades and enabling Direct Debit Origination. In addition, the Bank launched a Business Account Online (BAO) journey for SMEs, so new customers can open a business account on their mobile or online in just 15 minutes from start to finish, 24 hours a day.

This is in addition to the £1.5billion of Government-backed loans offered by Metro Bank to 36,000 UK businesses. The Bank also managed to keep all of its stores open throughout the pandemic, and is now back to offering 7 days a week opening hours, early until late.

The Bank has a range of other initiatives which it uses to promote and empower local businesses. To date Metro Bank has hosted more than 11,000 networking events in its stores, giving local businesses a platform to succeed and reach new people. The Bank also works in partnership with Enterprise Nation, a leading provider of advice to small businesses in the UK. This has a range of benefits for customers, including online tools that connect business owners with the answers they need, as well as a diverse range of virtual events held up and down the UK.

Jessica Myers, Brand and Marketing Director at Metro Bank, comments: “As a community bank – one that’s proud of the people and businesses where we operate – it’s a pleasure to feature three of our fantastic businesses and tell their powerful stories through our first fully integrated business brand campaign, whilst creating their own advertising campaigns too. Metro Bank is a champion of human relationships in banking. People value other people, and as the nation’s businesses recover from what has been an incredibly tough year, that’s more important now than ever before.”

This new campaign forms part of Metro Bank’s updated brand strategy, refreshed as part of its first ever brand campaign in 2020 which celebrated the Bank’s longstanding belief in “people-people banking” – the philosophy that whatever happens in the future of banking, people need people and value human relationships.

Metro Bank is vocal about its mission to create not only customers, but long term fans of the Bank. The “people-people banking” campaign was, in the Bank’s own words, about evolution and not revolution, maintaining Metro Bank’s strong brand values and culture.

Since the start of 2020, the Bank has built a modern day marketing team that continues to grow in a nimble and agile way. This business banking campaign is the output of a year’s worth of customer insight and data, with the target audience based around Metro Bank’s deep dive into understanding the SME market and developing customer segmentation across its portfolio of products. The campaign has been specifically designed to work the full marketing funnel from brand awareness and brand-building through to conversion, driving incremental growth and revenue generation for the Bank.

Metro Bank serves more than two million customer accounts and is celebrated for its exceptional customer experience. It is the highest rated high street bank for overall service quality and best for service in-store for personal customers, and best for service in-store for business customers in the Competition and Market Authority’s Service Quality Survey in February 2021. It was recognised as ‘Bank of the Year’ at the 2020 MoneyAge Awards and ‘Banking Brand of The Year’ at the Moneynet Personal Finance Awards 2021.

The community bank offers retail, business, commercial and private banking services, and prides itself on giving customers the choice to bank however, whenever and wherever they choose, and supporting the customers and communities it serves. Whether that’s through its network of 77 stores open seven days a week, early until late, 362 days a year; on the phone through its UK-based 24/7 contact centres; or online through its internet banking or award-winning mobile app: the bank offers customers real choice.

Metro Bank PLC. Registered in England and Wales. Company number: 6419578. Registered office: One Southampton Row, London, WC1B 5HA. ‘Metrobank’ is the registered trademark of Metro Bank PLC.

It is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority. Most relevant deposits are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. For further information about the Scheme refer to the FSCS website www.fscs.org.uk. All Metro Bank products are subject to status and approval.

Metro Bank PLC is an independent UK bank – it is not affiliated with any other bank or organisation (including the METRO newspaper or its publishers) anywhere in the world. Please refer to Metro Bank using the full name.