DBS Bank’s marketing playbook: Purpose-driven storytelling and the future of financial branding
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In today’s competitive financial landscape, banks are rethinking their approach to marketing. DBS Bank, ranked as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (Asean) most valuable bank brand for the 18th straight year last year, has adopted a unique storytelling-led strategy to stand out.
In this conversation with Mint, Karen Ngui, managing director (MD) and head of DBS Foundation and DBS Group Strategic Marketing and Communications, discusses how the bank is building a purpose-driven brand by embracing digital transformation, championing sustainability and engaging younger audiences through innovative content. Ngui delves into DBS’s shift from traditional marketing to a more integrated, purpose-led approach—with real stories, digital tools and responsible artificial intelligence (AI) at the core. Edited excerpts: India is a key market for us.
We celebrated our 30-year milestone in the country last year. In 2016, DBS launched Digibank in India, our first fully digital and paperless banking experience, which was a significant move. We chose India for this because of the market’s potential and readiness to embrace digital solutions.
Marketing has been pivotal in positioning DBS as a digital-first, purpose-driven brand. It’s not just about promoting products, but about showing how we can solve real customer problems and enable people to live more, bank less. Our brand promise—Live More, Bank Less—is what sets us apart.
It’s about making banking effortless, so customers can focus on living their best lives. We’ve been named Asean’s most valuable bank brand for the 18th year in a row in 2024, which speaks to our core values of trust and safety. But beyond that, our marketing approach is
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