Marketing

Bankinter once again placed its bets on the media.

Activity was intensified, with an increase in the Bank's digital presence and in direct marketing actions.

The Marketing area leads market research projects that allow us to ascertain the changes that are continually occurring in consumer behaviour and thus provide a better response to the financial needs of existing and potential customers. This work facilitates the construction of Bankinter's advertising positioning, an essential function in the Bank's commercial strategy.

The efforts made in research in 2013 enabled Bankinter to intensify its activity in this area during 2014, designing and developing the most appropriate strategy and marketing actions to achieve the sales objectives set.

Throughout this past year, Bankinter intensified its marketing activity, with a decisive commitment towards returning to the media: television, newspapers, radio and presence at sporting events with the most spectators, such as the Copa del Rey and Supercopa de España football championships. There was also a considerable increase in the Bank's online presence, especially in performance marketing communication vehicles such as search engines and affiliate marketing. Similarly activities in direct media also increased, with launches such as MGM (member get member) promotions, as well as the organisation of various events and the fourth edition of the annual concert tour, this year starring Inma Shara, the Philadelphia Gospel Choir and the Czech National Symphonic Orchestra.

In line with the foregoing, the measurement of the efficiency and effectiveness of these initiatives was strengthened, which was made possible by improving the systems and controlling the results of the campaigns by constructing econometric models for calculating the return on advertising investment (ROI) and the optimisation of the mix of media used.

As a result of these initiatives and of the execution of the Payroll Account advertising campaign, Bankinter won the Gold Award for sales effectiveness in the special research category of the prestigious awards of the Spanish Advertisers' Association for effective advertising in its 16th edition in 2014. This was the first time that one of our advertising campaigns has received this important award at national level. In these awards Bankinter was competing in a shortlist with 59 campaigns of another 30 advertisers.

The Effectiveness Awards are the only awards in Spain that recognise the results achieved thanks to advertising, and they take effectiveness as being the real purpose of advertising. These awards are the most highly valued by Spanish advertisers and the only ones in Spain that reward the best brand strategies in the design and implementation of their sales communication campaigns and the demonstration of the results obtained, whether in terms of sales, public profile or research, etc.

The reinforcement of the Marketing area, with a new structure, new people and processes, has made it possible to increase the support for the launch of new products and services, providing sales material and conducting mass media and direct campaigns for capturing and retaining customers and developing their loyalty through cross-selling.