The Co-Operative Bank’s latest brand campaign was designed to strengthen awareness of its ethical business banking proposition among the people most likely to act on it.
Last month, The Co-Operative Bank unveiled the ‘Bank like you do business’ campaign, centred on the idea that organisations should expect the same principles from their bank as they apply to their own operations.
Rather than relying on actors or hypothetical case studies, the campaign placed real customers front and centre, encouraging businesses to think more critically about where their money sits.
According to Michelle Pickard, group head of marketing at Coventry Building Society, of which the Co-Operative Bank is now a subsidiary, the primary goal was to drive reach and awareness among a clearly defined audience: key decision makers within purposeful organisations.
“We know that charities and community groups don’t make quick decisions about switching banks – this campaign was aimed at driving awareness of our ethical business banking proposition amongst key decision makers in purposeful organisation”.
With awareness established as the first priority, the second objective was to move those engaged audiences towards consideration.
“For the large scale reach channels, we focused on driving awareness of ethical business banking, and then where we could retarget anyone who engaged with the content we focused on showcasing our banking and specialist Relationship Management service proposition, to drive consideration,” she says.
Shared values, shared story
At the heart of the campaign was a deliberate decision to spotlight shared values over product features. Rather than simply asserting that it is an ethical bank, The Co-operative Bank set out to demonstrate that its purpose is reflected in the organisations it serves.
By celebrating values-led businesses that have chosen to bank with it, the creative reinforced the idea of alignment between a bank and its customers driven by the same principles.
Pickard stresses that this positioning only works because ethics are not a marketing add-on, but embedded within the organisation’s day-to-day operations.
“Our ethical brand is at the heart of everything we do, so our marketing and communications approach is always focused on what we do for our people, planet and communities. Whether that’s in the creative concepts and messaging or the media channels we use,” she says.
The campaign also responded to rising expectations from businesses that want greater transparency about how their money is used.
“We know that many people and businesses want their bank to behave ethically, and they want to know what their money is doing,” she notes. “That’s why this brand campaign, along with many of our campaigns showcases our ethical banking proposition, educating people on what, because of our customer-led Ethical Policy, we will and will not finance.”
That transparency was made more powerful by placing customers at the centre of the narrative. Instead of telling its own ethical story in isolation, the bank invited long-standing clients to add their voices, reinforcing credibility through lived experience, Pickard adds.
“Authenticity is important to us – so who better to tell our ethical story than our customers? The focus of the campaign was on how we share the same values as our customers, and so it felt right to include organisations that have banked with us for years. Both Friends of the Earth and The Social Change Nest chose to bank, and stay with us because of our values and ethics”.
Measuring impact beyond the message
For a campaign so rooted in purpose and values, measurement still comes back to disciplined brand metrics.
Pickard is clear that while the creative leans heavily into ethics, its performance is assessed in the same structured way as any other brand-led paid media campaign. That starts with understanding how effectively it reached its intended audience and how deeply that audience engaged with the content across channels.
“As this is a brand focused paid media campaign, we will be looking at the reach of our media channels and how much of our target audience engages with us, whether it is through social media views or digital display clicks,” she says.
But performance does not stop at media metrics. The bank is also monitoring shifts in longer-term brand indicators to assess whether the campaign is influencing perception as well as visibility.
“We also look at the impact on our brand tracking metrics like awareness and consideration, and we will also track how both customers and non-customers respond to our creative route and messaging,” she adds.
While metrics are important, the campaign isn’t measured solely in clicks or views. It is about whether the story of shared values resonates, whether it deepens awareness among key decision makers and whether it reinforces the bank’s position as an ethical partner that both customers and prospects can trust.
To learn more about how building societies are leaning into their mutual status and community roots to differentiate from retail banks, join the ‘Purpose-led branding in a digital age‘ panel at FP Live! 2026.