Innovation

Convert It

Bank of New Zealand

Issue 51 | June 2019

Agency

Colenso BBDO

Creative Team

Creative Chairman Nick Worthington Chief Creative Officer Levi Slavin Executive Creative Director Steve Cochran Creative Technology Director David Arcus Creative Director, Art Director Maria Devereux Creative Director, Copywriter Kim Ragan Art Director Simon Stuart, George Howes Copywriter Holly Sutton-Williams

Production Team

Design Director Dean Pomfrett Product and Experience Manager Adnaan Narot Head of Innovation and Ventures Gavin Becker Head of Digital Tim Freeman Digital and Data Strategist Emma Tait Senior Digital Producer Claudio Varoli-Piazza

Other Credits

Group Business Director, Head of Project Management Lucy Grigg Group Strategy Director Belinda Lush Head of Marketing, Future Value Rachel Aikin BNZ Senior Marketing Lead Anna Moore, Summer Hamilton Digital Strategy Manager Adam McLaughlin

Date

July 2018

Background

BNZ’s brand mission is to help not just their customers, but all New Zealanders be good with money so they can do great things with it.

In line with this purpose, BNZ wanted to engage with young New Zealanders, by genuinely helping them be good with money in every aspect of their lives.

One such area of their lives is travel. When it comes to travel, young kiwis love it – but keeping track of spending can be stressful. So, BNZ wanted to give these New Zealanders something truly useful that would help them worry less and enjoy travelling more.

Idea

To help New Zealanders be good with money while they travel, Convert It was developed and built.

The first currency conversion app that uses Optical Character Recognition to detect and convert prices in over 170 currencies and convert them to New Zealand dollars, no matter how they’re written.

After all, it’s easier to track what you’re spending when you can see prices in your own ‘money language.’ More than just an app, BNZ Convert It is also a way for all New Zealanders to experience BNZ’s brand promise, beyond the people who bank with them every day.

Results

During its first week, BNZ Convert It was rated #1 Travel app in both app stores. It has been used to convert over 300,000 prices in 175 countries so far. And in partnership with Google, it was possible to develop optical character recognition, to make illegible hand-written currencies, legible.

Our Thoughts

These days, we expect our smartphones to be capable of doing things which would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. In fact, we are so attuned to innovation we don’t even notice it. Take this idea. What is amazing is that no- one ever thought of it before rather than the tech that makes it possible. Which, when you stop to really think about it, is genuinely amazing. Here’s an idea so useful, it doesn’t look as remarkable as it is. Tough on the agency, who may have been hoping to win awards, but great for the rest of us when we travel abroad.