NatWest rate savings
When you see an article about BANKING accompanied by images of PIGS, you expect the customary headline to the effect of NOSES IN THE TROUGH. It was thus with a sense of pleasant relief that I realised a full-page feature in Saturday’s Telegraph ‘Money’ supplement was actually eulogising Sales Promotion. NatWest apparently are resurrecting their 1980s china piggy-bank idea, targeted at encouraging children to save. Click here to see it.
By all accounts the original campaign was immensely successful, with 5 million china pigs produced. A tiered collector-scheme, it had all the hallmarks of a well-thought-through promotion, including being effectively funded. I think also it was in tune with the practicalities of the pre-internet environment.
Today, the only way we can get our kids to save is to keep it a secret: they HAVE savings, from money sent at Birthdays and Christmas, they just DON’T KNOW about it. Conversely, any non-intercepted cash is instantly converted into purchases from Top Man and Build-a-Bear (or even from Tesco on sly trips with Gran). No money-box has yet proved sufficiently resilient in face of small determined fingers.
Which makes me think what NatWest actually need are VIRTUAL pigs. Apart from the obvious advantages in terms of eliminating handling and breakages, it would be so simple for parents and relatives to ‘fatten’ the little piggies online. In turn, via their iPads, the new generation of savers could view their locked-down nest eggs (apologies for the mixed metaphor), free from the temptation to splurge the lot at the earliest opportunity.
