SMALL BANK JOINS THE GEN Z GAME

Geelong Bank, a single-branch, customer-owned bank is reaching a new audience with a digital strategy that many banks won’t dare to try.

“The big change that we’ve had has been moving into a realm that we had not been in before, which is TikTok”, says Vivien Allen, CEO of Geelong Bank.

TikTok – it’s not just an entertainment platform, it’s a search engine. 

In 2023, users are spending an average of 29 hours and 36 minutes on TikTok per month – a 26.5% increase on last year.

What Geelong Bank is doing right is meeting Gen Z on their level, finding financial knowledge gaps and offering valuable information in a creative, unconventional way that appeals to the audience.

Gen Z don’t want to be targeted; they want transparency. Instead of driving hard sales, Geelong Bank are humanising their brand and earning trust – setting their sights on the long game: building the customer relationship.

“We do advertising through all of the traditional marketing areas but they weren’t bringing in the younger members. TikTok has been really good as a top-of-funnel lead generator.,” the Geelong Bank CEO says.

If there’s one thing the industry can learn from this small bank, it’s that businesses need to ditch the one-approach-fits-all strategy and adapt their messaging to the space, and language, that speak to Gen Z. 

“ANZ started a TikTok strategy two years ago, and now have 28k followers. Don’t get left behind, get in before the big banks monopolise the channel.” Keith Couzinwood, Founder and Director of Kinc Agency says.

ING = 70 followers
Westpac = 45 followers
Bendigo Bank = 24 followers
Bank Australia = 140 followers
Bank of Melbourne = 3 followers

Geelong Bank = 350 followers

Looks like the AFL Geelong Cats aren’t the city’s only team who are slaying, as Gen Z would say.