This article was originally published in the Brand Finance South Africa 100 2025 report
Nedbank's brand value has risen 24% to R20.3 billion, making it the eighth most valuable South African brand, and ranks fourth among banking brands in the country.
Tebogo Motsepe, Executive Head: Marketing Strategy at GMCA Nedbank, unpacks how Nedbank is using creative storytelling, customer insights, and digital innovation to transform banking perceptions and drive engagement.
Interview with Tebogo Motsepe
Executive Head:
Marketing Strategy,
GMCA Nedbank
What defining moments have shaped and strengthened the Nedbank brand?
Getting people to change their minds about any brand isn’t an easy task. People tend to validate their biases at best. At worst, they just ignore you, especially in bank marketing.
The introduction of “See Money Differently” created a clear intent of doing things differently in creating clear symbols of re-evaluation.
In trying to change attitudes towards money, we didn’t merely communicate the benefits and strategies of good money management through a traditional marketing campaign. Instead, we launched a thriller (“Money Secrets”) to capture the nation’s consciousness.
For example, in trying to change perceptions of our digital capability, we didn’t merely state our digital features and benefits. We launched a fake new digital bank (“Newbank”), only to reveal it was Nedbank.
Building on that momentum, the BankYourTime campaign highlighted our seamless, digital banking tools and continued to shift perceptions of Nedbank as a bank that gives time back to its customers.
We launched Avo, a versatile digital platform offering a range of services and products beyond traditional banking, and Chowtown, a novel digital touchpoint for engaging tweens on a popular gaming platform. This cemented Nedbank’s intent to move away from its conservative and traditional image.
How have you adapted to emerging trends and technologies, and has this impacted your brand positioning in the market?
To challenge conventional segmentation, we have invested in Martech, allowing us to deliver personalised marketing experiences, designed to maximise the relevance and effectiveness of marketing efforts by leveraging comprehensive data and advanced AI capabilities.
This allows us to focus on unified profiles using various sources to create comprehensive, customised customer marketing profiles. This includes both known and pseudonymous data, ensuring a holistic view of each customer, used to create segmentation for Nedbank and non-Nedbank clients, and to ensure that audiences receive only relevant and timely offers.
We also use technology tools for gathering and disseminating insights, enabling us to approach these tasks innovatively and efficiently. Tools like Neo, a custom-built virtual chatbot, streamline the ingestion of research briefs in real-time, ensuring prompt and efficient responses. Additionally, the Design XM platform democratises access to research and insights across Nedbank, allowing stakeholders to conduct primary research swiftly and cost-effectively. This has significantly reduced research costs and delivery times, saving Nedbank over R2.5 million since 2020, with more than 40 projects completed to date.
What are your company’s biggest advantages in ensuring the success of your brand?
Digital Transformation
Nedbank has embraced digital transformation, which, combined with agile methodologies, allows us to be more flexible and efficient marketers. Multiple Martech platforms, like “Journey Orchestration” implemented in 2023/2024, have helped to improve customer engagement and operational efficiency.
Agile Ways of Working
Our Marketing Operating Model, designed to drive an agile, customer-focused system of marketing delivery, enables consistent, high-quality service across all touchpoints, ensuring we meet the evolving needs of our customers with the right message at the right time.
Award-winning agency partners
Our network of award-winning agency partners amplifies our marketing efforts. We have been jointly recognised across multiple prestigious platforms, highlighting our commitment to innovation, creativity, and impactful storytelling.
Evidencing Return on Marketing Investments
Every rand spent delivers measurable impact. We commercialise our sponsorship properties by strategically integrating our products or services into the activation and amplification of them. For the Nedbank Cup 2024, our goal was to grow main banked transactional clients by showcasing the benefits of our products among our identified stakeholders. This resulted in a 117% increase in MiGoals Plus sales and a 5% increase in Stockvel/Club sales.
Research-driven strategy
Leveraging consumer insights to inform our strategy, we have identified a significant link between brand preference and brand usage. Brand preference has been identified as the key metric crucial for increasing brand usage. Extensive exploratory research was conducted on the construct of preference to understand the conversion from consideration to usage, and this was integrated into our marketing funnel. Furthermore, we deploy innovative technologies to gather a wider and deeper set of insights into people's attitudes towards money in their daily lives.
Sustainability and social responsibility are increasingly important to stakeholders. How has Nedbank integrated these initiatives into its brand strategy?
In keeping with the bank’s non-traditional approach, we lead the charge towards a low carbon, resource efficient economy through the launch of the Nedbank Green Economy CSI Strategy, investing millions to develop jobs and emerging enterprises in agriculture, waste, water, and energy projects.
The strategy was implemented early 2021 and since then, has maximised Nedbank’s CSI commitment to the outcomes delivered by the projects receiving support.
As a purpose-led organisation that uses its financial expertise to do good, Nedbank is committed to supporting enterprises and initiatives that have the potential to drive meaningful, sustainable development in South Africa. We actively seek out innovative ways to leverage our resources and partnerships to create positive social, economic and environmental impact.
The strategy is driven by the creative platform GREEN IS THE NEW GOLD and thread through the communication construct of Seeing the Gold in Green.
This strategy resulted in a total Social Return on Investment of R71 997 092, achieving significant economic impact to the value of R34 932 125,23. The environmental impact includes a reduction in waste and Greenhouse Gases (GHG), while water was saved, totalling R5,831,246.65. Additionally, the financial impact in terms of net profit generated, amounts to R31,233,719.68.
