Growth with Metrobank

Metrobank, which was founded almost 63 years ago by George SK Ty in 1962 and is set to celebrate its 63rd anniversary this September, has established a solid and reliable reputation as a bank partner to its varied clients through generations that span from the baby boomers (1946 to 1963),  to millennials (1981 to 1996), to Gen Z (1997-2009) and now to Gen Alpha (2010-2024).

Over the past 30 years, the Ty family-led bank has assured its clients that “You’re in good hands” -- its consistent brand promise through three decades.

This year, Metrobank is reiterating that assurance, reaching out to the next generation that has matured and is now ready to accept the baton from their parents.

Last year, Metrobank’s marketing campaign was “Grow with Us.” Thus, for 2025, Metrobank has launched its new campaign with the theme of building a bridge to the new generation and an invitation to “Let’s Grow Together,” assuring the continued promise of mutual growth.

In an intimate event with media friends last Tuesday, with the invitation -The Perfect Pairing already hinting at new partnerships, Metrobank officials led by Digs Dimagiba (chief marketing officer), Chris Reyes (head of the commercial banking group), Joey Mapa (commercial banking head for Metro Manila) and Cris Concepcion (brand marketing head) unveiled the new marketing slogan and video at a specially curated dinner at Dr. Wine in Poblacion, Makati that highlighted the synergy of a well prepared meal with the perfect pairing of complementary wines for a satisfying dinner experience, and symbolically, a perfect partnership indeed with Metrobank.

What makes the new marketing campaign even more special, Cris Concepcion explained was that the marketing and advertising campaign was an “almost” fully in-house project – from the strategy, to the copy, to the script and all the way to production.

According to Cris, “The management team that did it was in house. We only outsourced the director and the studio. We don’t have a studio. We don’t have  directors, but otherwise, it’s fully in-house, which I think is something that we are yet to flex.” Likewise, he said,  the storyboards and dioramas to depict the business ecosystem that were used in the  marketing video were also made by Metrobank staff, thus, no expensive CGI (computer-generated imagery) was necessary, just a traditional form of special effects rather than artificial intelligence, Digs added, of which the team is very proud of.

The dioramas used for the marketing video, which are currently kept in the office of Digs, will be recycled this Christmas as their office decor. Digs pointed out, “all the little buildings...all of those are hand constructed dioramas...We thought sulit naman because sa Christmas, it will become a real Christmas village. We’ll put some snow in...we’re going to put a train that will go around.”

While brainstorming for their new campaign, Cris explained that their process involved analyzing how their customers view working with Metrobank. “We realized that it’s really about the growth story. All  our customers have explained to us that growth. So this growing with Metrobank campaign was launched  last year, and it actually had a lot of good feedback.”

Indeed that 2024 campaign garnered a Gold Stevies which their team personally received in Turkey last year. The Gold Stevies was awarded during the 2024 International Business Awards. The “Grow With Metrobank” campaign, tells the stories of growth from customers’ and Metrobankers’ perspective. The “Grow with Metrobank” campaign videos were the only gold awardee and Philippine company recognized under the video for financial services-banking category.

That growth story and the bank’s brand promise of  “You’re in good hands,” has been Metrobank’s authentic promise and tagline for a long time, Cris pointed out, and “it’s really part our DNA, and we wanted to understand how can we express the meaning of 30 years of being in good hands.”

It was then that they realized “it’s really about the journey of our clients and partners as they go about their day to day. So we wanted to use it all. We wanted to use the stories from our customers. I think the promise remains, it’s really about partnering with Metrobank, and our unique and authentic ways to partner with our clients, that is why we have clients that have been with us for generations,” Cris said.

However, there was also a conscious decision not to get an endorser, Cris revealed, because “we wanted it to be as authentic as possible, we couldn’t find any type of endorser-celebrity who could embody the brand without putting any color or bias. Sometimes, I think when you put the star power in a material, the audience tends to look at the star rather than the story. And so we wanted to make sure that our characters represent the customers that we have.”

Furthermore, Cris elaborated,” what we really like about exploring the story of Metrobank and partnerships... for one, what we realize is that Metrobank has this keen eye to see clients’ potential. You know, sometimes there are stories that some of these clients were turned down, but when we see the potential, we actually go full on with the partner. We also help them with identifying different insights in the business to help them actually make  the right decisions. And we’re able to bridge our clients with our other clients of the same type of ambition...to help them actually have competitive advantage across the  different value chain.”

The input of Chris Reyes and Joey Mapa, thus, helped in completing the storyboard for their “Let’s Grow Together” video.

Good job, good story and a very fine meal!