My initial feeling is I don’t want a radical departure or change in direction of what has made Monzo so successful up until this point. We have such an amazing story to tell and we should be trying to surface that. This could still go in a lot of directions… but if it doesnt “feel” Monzo then I think we have failed, which is why we wanted to engage the community early.
6 Likes
You know what Viola black did?
Yeah, don’t do that
16 Likes
I hear you.
10 Likes
If you imply (or worse still, state) that Monzo is an account for millennials I will feel personally attacked.
Just sayin.
8 Likes
If the ad pisses off any demographic we have also failed. Our audience does skew younger but that is rapidly changing.
19 Likes
Instant Transactions, being able to see very clearly where your money goes and free to spend on debit card globally
I just think Monzo could do a great Christmas advert with the gambling block playing the main part…
I believe cryptic ads work better when you have an existing brand people know about, and they know what it does, and you’re just trying to get them to think about it more often. Guinness, for example, certain car adverts, or the classic example (back when they were still allowed to do so) of cigarette advertising.
If the brand isn’t known, there’s far too much danger of (at best) confusing people - “That was nice, but I’ve no idea what they’re actually selling” - or (at worst) annoying people - “They can fuck right off with that pretentious shit!”
The last series of the Apprentice had a great example of cryptic going wrong in the advert task, as they were supposed to advertise an airline but instead showed people pratting about on the beach.
My own personal feeling towards cryptic adverts is that a lot of the time they feel like the director is advertising his skills in filming and angling towards a career in Hollywood more than they’re trying to advertise the actual product they should be advertising.
Of course, the opposite of an ad being too cryptic is an ad being too on-the-nose, so it’s going to be a tricky line for Monzo to walk, I think. Finding the right ad agency to help is probably going to be key.
5 Likes
It generally depends on who I’m “selling” to. If I’m going for one of my more tech savvy friends, I go in on the automating your banking (scheduled transfers to and from pots to lock/make available money as needed for certain things, like bills).
If I’m talking to less tech savvy family members, I tend to avoid the automation side of things, that tends to get them uninterested quite quickly 
For them I tend to go in on the features such as freezing/unfreezing the card in the app, instant spending notifications, and the ease of sending money to one another.
For both groups I try to make a big deal out of how responsive the support team at Monzo are and how chats are like just having a chin wag with your mate, but still managing to be efficient and professional.
2 Likes
I would sell it on how much better Monzo is vs an existing bank.
- Comparing instant notifications to seeing finding out spend two days later. Could probably compare the colourful useful insights provided by Monzo to the list of transactions you get with no analysis from a legacy bank.
- Being able to freeze your card when it is lost (could probably have some fun out of these with declines at jokey retailers).
- Being welcomed and not being blocked when you go abroad (could probably compare it to someone having to enter remember the 5th and 11th characters of their password and respond to texts).
- Being able to message in-app for support (could compare to someone getting frustrated with one of those automated phone systems the legacy banks used).
- The ease of being able to split the bill.
4 Likes
Ive been involved in a lot of campaigns over the years and yes as a rule of thumb the more abstract it is - the lower the response rate. Straightforward, simple and transparent feels Monzo to me. Doesn’t necessarily mean we have to be stiff and boring but people do need to instantly know what they are looking at.
11 Likes
Pretty much any time “real” people are shown interacting in adverts it comes across really staged, awkward and unrealistic
Maybe this is partly the lighting of the scene and the need to follow the script and whatever, but it really puts me off
Mainly I think it is because people just do not talk to each other, especially to friends and colleagues, like an advertising pamphlet
Please, please avoid that
I really like this approach from @Tom-H, which feels like a good basis for an advert:
1 Like
I don’t suppose there’s any way I could sell my friends to Monzo?
6 Likes
Talking about adverts/videos:
I really liked the style of the croundfunding video staring Tom. He was walking around, talking/explaining as we followed. It felt like a tour of monzo (I suppose that’s what it was).
It was easy to watch, cheerful and simple.
11 Likes
Show the your trip to … aswell
1 Like
More important show how transparent the company is, thats sort of Monzos thing
2 Likes
For anyone remotely interested in protecting their money, Monzo should be an easy sell.
The instant notification is the perfect tool to explain to people how when they become a victim of fraud, Monzo will alert them in real time, probably give a pretty accurate location of the transaction (on the remote chance that the Police might be interested) and also then the ability to freeze the card and thus prevent further issues…
Or they could ignore the above, stick with their “proper” bank and then 3 days later realise they’ve got missing money and hours of phonecalls to deal with to get their money back…
1 Like
I should have just you guys to run my induction 
… surfacing all the best stuff. He is a handsome devil is he not?
8 Likes
All of the above, plus:
- The service level. The staff are the most helpful I have ever dealt with.
- The fact that they spotted a potential overdraft situation a month early.
- Summary - seeing your balance after bills.
Interestingly, I have had two people tell me that Halifax offer all this. Not sure this is true, but would be worth finding out which features are still Monzo-only, especially as Barclays appear to be copying your every move…
1 Like
And if you need anyone to go to the Bora Bora to film a section of the ad to show how it works, just give me a bell
1 Like