Ad shares name with fraudster

Using the name of a convicted fraudster in a banking advertisement might be a case of clever marketing.

The Co-operative Bank has been running advertisements in which the card-holder is called ‘‘Jo Harrison’’.

But Joanne Harrison is a former senior manager at the Ministry of Transport who was sentenced to three years and seven months’ jail in February, over the theft of $726,000.

Marketing expert Bodo Lang, from the University of Auckland business school, said the adverts first appeared in Wellington earlier in the year.

‘‘They showed the name when the fraud case was very publicly discussed across all media.’’

He said it was possible the similarity was just coincidence.

‘‘The second option would be that the advertiser decided on the name after the fraud case became public. If this was unintentional, then the advertiser did not do a name check, which is something that should be done for every name that is used,’’ he said.

‘‘The third option is that the advertiser was aware of the name and chose it deliberately to get the public talking about the advertising campaign.’’

Lang said research had shown that even negative publicity could be beneficial, provided that consumers were fairly unaware of the brand name.

‘‘The Co-operative Bank brand name is not one of the first that would be top of mind for New Zealanders to name a bank. So if the name was chosen purposefully, that would be clever marketing – getting a little bit more online and offline engagement out of the campaign than the campaign would have generated otherwise.’’

The bank has been approached for comment.