Revolut’s Creepy Ads Misfire in Ireland

I want to make this completely clear from the outset here. I absolutely love Revolut. They are wiping the floor with most of Ireland’s archaic banks and are quickly racking up users with over 200,000 in Ireland already. But one of their recent ad campaigns that launched in Ireland recently is a little creepy and are more than a little tone deaf for the Irish market.

Revolut’s Crappy Ad Placement

The ad in question was spotted out in the wild by Séan Cannon-Earley from Teneo Ireland:

Quite creepy from @RevolutApp? pic.twitter.com/eA3y37N73B

— Seán Cannon-Earley (@seanearley) February 2, 2019

Their ad calls speaks to over 11,000 people who bought a vegan sausage roll following the who Greggs/Piers Morgan vegan sausage roll drama/PR stunt.

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It’s easy enough to spot what Revolut were going for here. Showing off the tracking side of using their account and flaunting the fact they have lots of data on everyone. Spotify did this a while back where they spoke to individuals with unusual listening habits.

Some people loved it. Some people hated it. Most people thought it was a little creepy and this was all pre-GDPR and pre-Cambridge Analytica. But that’s not even where I want to start with why this is a terrible ad from Revolut.

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What’s Wrong With The Revolut Ad?

Let’s take it apart.

The Revolut ad calls out:

• The Greggs Vegan sausage roll
• Piers Morgan
• How many people bought the Greggs sausage roll
• Revolut’s Brit Award sponsorship

Now, here’s what’s wrong with this. Sure, I’m writing this post-Six Nations loss to England, but Revolut would appear to have completed missed the whole Republic of Ireland being a different market, place, country, group of people thing. 

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Greggs doesn’t exist in Ireland.

Piers Morgan is one of the most British things on the planet.

That whole thing just popped up on Irish peoples’ Twitter feeds for a while and that was that. It’s not something that we relate to and I’d imagine the vast majority of people who see this are like “I don’t get this?”

Finally, while you could argue I’m being a bit over the top, the inclusion of the Brit Awards on this makes me think someone in the Revolut marketing team has just completely ignored the fact we’re not British or has released this suite of ads on Ireland in error

This Isn’t a Big Deal Though?

It’s really not, but I want Revolut to succeed and be perfect. Already, when considering joining their top-level premium account I discovered that Ireland is the only country that can’t get their gadget insurance package. Considering Revolut has over 200,000 Irish customers, it’s important we hold them to account when it comes to paying Ireland the attention it deserves.

So come on Revolut. If you’re going to give us creepy ads, the very least you can do is make them relevant.

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