The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2021–2026
ANZ NZ swaps 'dream big' banking for knowing HOW — Global Grand Effie
ANZ rebuilt its brand around practical capability: the Sharma family's story plus a free six-step financial wellbeing programme — Global Grand Effie 2025.
ANZ Bank New Zealand
What it had to solve
March 2021 ANZ research found almost 60% of New Zealanders wanted to save or invest more and 77% thought they could do better with their money, yet people rarely knew where to start. Banks conventionally sell aspiration — ANZ chose to sell capability, positioning itself as the bank with the how.
How it works
After Covid, ANZ's March 2021 research found New Zealanders felt wealth was more about knowing they could pay for things that help their family thrive: almost 60% wanted to save or invest more and 77% thought they could do better with their money, yet most did not know where to start. Banks conventionally tell people to dream big; ANZ decided the more useful and more distinctive move was to show the how.
TBWA\New Zealand launched the platform in April 2021 with a two-minute hero film about the Sharma family — parents Ravi and Claire, children Sameer and Tara — whose shared passion is cricket. As the story evolves, ANZ appears as the provider of the 'hows' behind the family's 'whys'. The platform was supported by a free six-step Financial Wellbeing Programme open to everyone, not just ANZ customers, beginning with a personal financial wellbeing score that more than 22,000 Kiwis had already taken at launch; staff got their own 'Deck of How' cards and a 'Book of How'.
The idea travelled beyond advertising into how the bank behaves, which is what the awards measured: the platform won the Grand Effie at the 2024 Effie Awards Aotearoa — where TBWA\NZ was also named Most Effective Agency of the Year — after taking Gold at the APAC Effies, and was recognised for tangible impact in helping Kiwis improve financial wellbeing.
At the 2025 Global Best of the Best Effie Awards, announced in April 2026, the platform won the Global Grand Effie in Sustained Success – Services, the top honour in its category across all Effie programmes worldwide. TBWA\NZ's CEO described the work as proof that creativity delivers most when it goes beyond communications into products, services and customer experiences — and ANZ's programme remains free for all New Zealanders.
Why it lands
- Instead of promising a dream, the platform delivered steps — in banking, practical capability is more distinctive than aspiration.
- One believable family made an abstract idea watchable and gave the platform continuity across years of work.
- Making the wellbeing programme free to non-customers proved the 'how' was genuine rather than a sales tactic.
- The idea travelled from ads into products and services, so its effect compounded across the whole business.
What it did
The platform took the Grand Effie at the 2024 Effie Awards Aotearoa and a Gold at the APAC Effies months earlier, then in 2026 won the Global Grand Effie for Sustained Success – Services at Effie Worldwide's Best of the Best, recognised for its long-term commercial impact on how the bank helps New Zealanders turn ambition into action.
What you can take
When a category is built on aspiration, the distinctive move can be usefulness: giving people the how — free and open to everyone — makes the brand the answer rather than the promise.
Since then
What began as a campaign became the bank's organising idea: TBWA\New Zealand says creativity went beyond communications into products, services and customer experiences, and ANZ's work on the platform collected successive honours — including Agency of the Year for TBWA\NZ at the 2024 New Zealand Effies and a Global Grand Effie at the 2025 Best of the Best. The financial wellbeing programme remains open to all New Zealanders, not only ANZ customers.
Sources
- TBWA\NZ: ANZ rethinks its usefulness
- TBWA\NZ crowned most Effective Agency of the Year and takes home Grand Effie for ANZ
- TBWA\New Zealand Wins Global Grand Effie for ANZ Work
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