Healthcare workers make up an important segment of National Bank’s clientele, and with a new campaign, it is changing its approach to reaching them, casting a wider net and showing it can help with all of their changing financial needs.

The bank’s new campaign – created by Sid Lee – highlights the essential work of healthcare professionals during the challenges brought on by the pandemic. Through a series of six spots in English and French, the brand highlights healthcare workers beyond the nurses and doctors that have been focal points of much marketing this year, like social workers, neonatal nurses, radiation technologists, respiratory therapists and even cleaners and a stretcher bearer.

According to Pierre Dufour, VP of marketing strategy and execution at National Bank, a significant number of healthcare professionals are already National Bank clients – particularly in its home province of Quebec – but with more than one million working across Canada, it is a segment that continues to grow.

The brand has been supporting health professionals and their associations for more than 20 years through things like financial contributions to associations like the Quebec Nurses’ Association. The bank is now providing health professionals with special offers, like reduced bank account fees, reduced rates on financing and better rates on savings, offers that are permanent outside of the pandemic.

Dufour says National Bank is building off these initiatives and making it clear they apply to all health professionals because, as people have seen in the pandemic, “every single one of them are really important in making sure the entire system works.”

“When you think about health professionals overall, the concept of inclusion is quite important, because that’s how the system actually works – they all help each other,” Dufour says. “Also, from our standpoint, it allows us as well to be really well targeted in our activities.” For example, National Bank will have OOH campaign elements in bus shelters and billboards near hospitals in Montreal. The campaign also includes paid digital and social, with Sid Lee also handling the media buy.

Dufour says, previously, its approach to marketing to healthcare workers would have focused on a specific job function within the industry. As part of its new approach, National Bank spoke to its clients who work in the healthcare profession, who said they wanted to hear more from themselves, explaining what they do and how financial services may uniquely fit into their lives.

The prevailing consumer trend for healthcare worker clients right now, Dufour says, is that they’re looking for guidance on their finances and how to invest their money, as they have additional funds set aside from working more hours due to the pandemic and not taking trips.