Brand: postbank

In a personalized viral video campaign by Postbank, a children’s choir loudly sings the client’s name: ‘Thank you Erwin, thank you Erwin, thank you Erwin!’ (pb). Brands start to address people by name in a personal (yet automatized) dialogue. People are very alert in hearing their names. Even in a very busy bar, where it is impossible to follow all the different dialogues, we immediately pick up if somebody is mentioning our name. Therefore we will get to see this form of communication a lot more. Now in a campaign, later also more structural as part of the dialogue we have with the brand agent.

Postbank introduces the Postbank Buddy for Windows Live Messenger (earlier MSN Messenger). With this the Postbank customer can check his or her own balance and recent account activities, and the buddy also answers questions to the customer service department like it is completely normal.

After several other banks, among others ABN Amro (Saldo-bot) and Rabobank (Yvette), and an earlier pilot by Postbank for students, Postbank now also has a real Buddy. This buddy however is much more intelligent then earlier buddy’s from its competitors. If you are a Postbank client, you add “postbankbuddy@postbank.nl” to your Messenger friends list, and you activate the buddy in your mijnpostbank.nl (the personal Postbank surroundings), you can directly chat with the buddy. You can check your balance, see the latest activities on your account, and ask questions to the customer service department. In a normal dialogue. Some examples: