Broker balks at bank ad

Big banks can keep their house calls, argue brokers who prefers to do business the more-efficient way

It may be a clever marketing ploy, but don’t expect brokers to start trying to compete with the banks when it comes to in-house client visits.
 
“Driving to a client's home is not only inefficient and a bad use of a broker's time … why would you put yourself in such a position?” one commenter wrote on MortgageBrokerNews.ca, laying out exactly why. “You spend one hour driving to their home, 30 minutes with small talk, 30 minutes talking shop, and then one hour driving back home. Three hours of your time and a small chance to close the deal.”
 
The comment – which effectively offers the majority opinion – comes in response to a MortgageBrokerNews.ca article outlining a new marketing push by one big bank to better promote in-house mortgage specialist visits.
 
As MortgageBrokerNews.ca reported recently, CIBC is now airing 30-second television spots that draw attention to its mobile mortgage specialists in a way that many in the broker channel recognize as new and bigger than past efforts.
 
The ad features a couple of penguins doing chores around the home, talking about their busy schedules and trying to figure out when to meet with their mortgage advisor.
 
“You know what would be great?” asks one penguin in the ad. “If the bank came to us.”
 
The ad ends with the message: “Our mortgage advisors come to you.”
 
One reader posed an alternative – albeit tongue-in-cheek – commercial that brokers could air. It would draw attention to the time a client saves in visiting just one broker, presumably at his or her office, over meeting with a string of mortgage specialists in the comfort of their home.
 
“The commercial could have 20 mobile mortgage people cramming in a couple’s home at the same time, and then show the alternative of meeting with one mortgage broker in their home to discuss 20 lender options,” Warren Ross, a broker with Mortgage Intelligence, wrote.