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I was thoroughly entertained and very impressed by NAB's recent break-up campaign, it's not often you see such an innovative, clever, well timed and well executed marketing strategy.

NAB's huge push to differentiate itself from Australia's other big four banks has quickly become an early candidate for marketing campaign of the year - and with good reason.

In today's media-saturated world, it's no secret that it's difficult to grab the attention of consumers for any substantial period of time, let alone an extended campaign such as this which lasted closer to four or five days.

The campaign started the Friday just before Valentines Day (perfect timing!) with what looked like an very unusual tweet from NAB's corporate Twitter account suggesting that there was going to be a difficult break-up.

The next day, newspaper broke the story that NAB intends to pay subsidies up to $700 to assist customers switching mortgages from Commonwealth Bank and Westpac in order to pay exit fees.

On Valentines Day - it launch the break-up campaign, followed by a number of marketing, advertising and PR stunts. CD's full of break-up songs were handed out at railway stations, signs on footpaths, and actors performed mock break-ups around the country...to name a few.

It really was a multi-media blitz which was no doubt worth the millions it cost to pull it off. There's some lessons SME's can learn here (even without the millions of dollars).

1. Co-ordination in key
NAB coordinated a number of mediums starting from Twitter, through to print followed by guerrilla marketing stunts all backed by media interviews and TV appearances. All these elements worked together to create a bang!

2. Social Media
Starting the campaign with Twitter was brilliant because it immediately reached the younger customers NAB wanted to attract. The use of video and YouTube also helped send the campaign viral - nothing flash necessary, just home-made style videos of break-ups.

3. Unique
Lets face it - it was unique and so very un-bank-like, which is one of the reasons it was so successful. NAB's willingness to experiment and take risks has meant that I look at them a little differently now...do you?

4. Address customer directly
NAB very openly talked about and to its main rivals - which in Australia in particular - makes for a refreshing upfront change. The danger was that the competitors will get free publicity out of it - but when your trying to differentiate yourself from your competitors, sometimes you just gotta do it.

5. Setting Expectations
I'm going to be a little disappointed if the next marketing push is more reserved or doesn't have the same willingness to experiment outside the box, so that a risk you run when taking risks.

Georgina Sainer Marketing Co-ordinator Check out some of the stunts below - kept me smiling all day!