MEDIA & MARKETING:New head of product development at the bank Mark Mohan is keen to challenge the status quo, writes Siobhán O'Connell

IN THE first week in his new job as head of marketing and product development at Bank of Scotland Ireland, Mark Mohan insists that cutbacks in marketing expenditure are not on the agenda.

In his new role, Mohan is responsible for the marketing strategy for Halifax, which has a branch network and offers personal banking services, as well as Bank of Scotland, which caters for business customers.

According to IAPI, the advertising trade body, Halifax spent more than €7 million on advertising through 2008 with the Bank of Scotland brand spending about €2 million. To put this in context, market leaders AIB and Bank of Ireland’s advertising and marketing spend last year was in the region of €10 million each.

In the banking market, Halifax and Bank of Scotland are both “challenger” brands, that is, relatively new entrants who are trying to claw market share from the long-established players. In this regard Mohan fits the bill, as he was previously commercial director with Setanta Sports in the UK, where the challenge was taking on the might of Sky Sports.

On the merits of not cutting marketing budgets in a downturn, Mohan says: “You have to take a medium to long-term perspective on marketing spend. We are in the process of launching some new marketing initiatives which should get some nice attention . . . Everything we do in the next few years must challenge the status quo and must clearly articulate to customers what we can deliver for them. The next few years are going to be the era of the savvy customer looking for value.”

Mohan has made his presence felt immediately with the bank’s suppliers. This week he announced that advertising for Halifax will be handled by advert agencies Language and Kdnine.

According to Mohan, the two agencies will attempt to create adverts that will build on the “dynamic and innovative image consumers have of the Halifax brand”. Language and Kdnine replace Publicis QMP, who worked on the brand for more than two years and in 2008 won an award from the Irish Marketing Institute for its Halifax advertising.

Publicis appears to have fallen victim to a change in the bank’s marketing personnel that pre-dated Mohan’s arrival.

Pádraig Burns, deputy managing director of the agency, isn’t happy about losing the account. He said: “We were very surprised not to be asked to re-pitch for the Halifax account based on our track record of creative success and business results.” As a consolation, Publicis has picked up the creative account for the UK-based Nationwide building society, which will launch in Ireland this year.

Having worked in marketing in Ireland and the UK, Mohan is well placed to identify the marketing challenges in the much bigger UK market.

He points to the relative ease of implementing a national advert campaign in Ireland compared to the UK, where the media market is much more fragmented.

Value is another issue. Mohan talks of how he learned in the UK to secure better value for his spend by holding out on placing bookings until the last minute.

Every advert Mohan placed for Setanta had a unique phone number and web address, which allowed response to be measured. Online also played an important role, although he concedes online is more developed in the UK.

Among the ploys Mohan used to tackle Sky was responding directly to its rival’s advertising. “When Sky ran a campaign with the tagline, ‘all the football you’ll ever need’, we ran that same line as a headline in our own adverts but we added the line ‘except all the football we’ve got’, ” he said.

Mohan also used veteran BBC sports presenter Des Lynam to promote the Setanta Sports brand. “Bringing on board a popular personality who the public can relate to is important for any challenger brand,” he said.

The jury is out on how successful Setanta has been in challenging Sky in the football arena. Unlike Sky, privately owned Setanta doesn’t disclose its performance metrics.

Mohan says he quit Setanta for lifestyle reasons. For three years, he made a weekly red-eye commute from Dublin to London, only getting to see his wife and four children at weekends.