Target-smashing work

NatWest Student Campaign

Role: In-house Creative Director, Brand & Visual
I led the design and direction of all social content as part of an early-stage exploration to help reimagine and evolve the NatWest brand from the inside out.

A brand identity that speaks fluent student — minus the cringe

The briefHow do you get students to notice a student bank account? With attention-grabbing variety and zero dullness. Enter a bold, renegade mix of social content and in-branch Scala screens designed to stop the scroll — and turn heads.

Pushing boundaries to move the brand forwardBy working at the edges of what the brand allowed, our 2020 creative nudged NatWest into bolder, more expressive territory — helping to evolve its tone, look and feel from the inside out.

Setting the standard for what came next…It established a bold new tone for future campaigns aimed at school-leavers and students — raising the creative bar and paving the way for work that has consistently smashed performance targets.

ResultsThe most effective student campaign ever!

Bespoke creative and upweighted spend in A-Level Results Week contributed to a record breaking week with 5.3K app completes (up 366% and 390% on the same week in 2019/2020)
In the last two weeks of August, the campaign delivered the two highest new-to-bank weekly open rates since 2017 with 1.9k and 2.5k opens
The Tik Tok Campaign generated – 9.5m views, 11.3% completed views against a benchmark of 3.5%, 10.48% view time against a benchmark of 4.5%.

Overall Results
NatWest’s share of the student account market increased from 7% in 2019 to 13% in 2021.

—
Credits

Clair Whitefield In-house copywriting partner

2025 | Instagram | LinkedIn