Bank Of America: THE FIRST AIDS-FREE GENERATION

Credits & Description:

Type of entry: Integrated Campaign
Category: Use of Integrated Media
Advertiser: BANK OF AMERICA
Product/Service: BANK OF AMERICA
Agency: STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Chicago, USA

Client: BANK OF AMERICA
Product: BANK OF AMERICA
Entrant: STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Chicago, USA
Type of Entry: Integrated Campaign
Category: Use of Integrated Media
Advertising Agency : HILL HOLLIDAY Boston, USA
Media Agency : STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Chicago, USA
Entrant Company : STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Chicago, USA

Executive Creative Director: Rob Rizzo (Starcom Mediavest Group)
Group Creative Director/Copywriter: Kenny Rennard (Starcom Mediavest Group)
Creative Director/Art Director: Justin Cyganiewicz (Starcom Mediavest Group)
Associate Creative Director: Patricio Sanchez (Starcom Mediavest Group)
Chief Creative Officer: Lance Jensen (Hill Holliday)
Creative Director/Copywriter: Spencer Deadrick (Hill Holliday)
Sr. Copywriter : Caroline Steiner (Starcom Mediavest Group)
Executive Vice President: Norman De Greve (Starcom Mediavest Group)
Senior Vice President/Account Director: Jodi Robinson (Starcom Mediavest Group)
Group Vice President/Account Director: Debra Hughes (Starcom Mediavest Group)
Social Media Directors: Jill Sherman/Jeanne Bright/Aaron Hoiles (Starcom Mediavest Group)
Vice President/Communications Planning: Colleen Leahy (Starcom Mediavest Group)
Vice President/Director: Kerry Ross (Starcom Mediavest Group)
Group Analytics Director: Purvi Harley (Starcom Mediavest Group)
Creative Director/Art Director: David Gardiner (Hill Holliday)
Executive Producer : Brian Gonsar (Hill Holliday)
Account Team: Leslee Kiley/Nancy Lehrer/Jeffrey Nowak/Andrew Still/Jaime Nilsson/Kim Almazan/A (Hill Holliday)
Executive Vice President: Lou Kovacs (Octagon)
Managing Director: Keith Hughes (Burson)
Cmo And Svp: Anne Finucane And Meredith Verdone (Bank Of America)

Results and Effectiveness:
Reigniting the movement to end AIDS in Africa, we built a multi-media program that did something that had never been done in music history: 1million downloads of a song in 1hour. Using first-ever tactics to drive direct to iTunes, there were 3,144,477 downloads in the total 24-hours.

Song downloads triggered a $3,144,477 donation from Bank of America – translating into over 7.8 million days of life-saving AIDS medication for pregnant mothers. There were 7 million YouTube views of the ad, 112,000 campaign mentions and 107,000 tweets.

And the Bank achieved the most consecutive days of positive total brand sentiment since 2008.

Creative Execution:
We used the week-long pre-SuperBowl ad frenzy to count down to the action the world should take on 2/2, using paid, owned, and earned media to tease the free 24-hour download event on that day. 15 Bank and (RED) site and mobile properties, and iTunes itself, featured the countdown – it was even on the digital billboard in Times Square behind pre-game commentary on Fox. Radio, and a promoted Vine in Twitter, teased U2’s song to capture attention.

Hours before the game, a Twitter celebrity push signaled it had begun. Exclusive and customized deals with Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo!, and Shazam made direct-to-iTunes downloads possible.

The SuperBowl end of Q1 ad position was momentum-building. The ad ran 13 more times, during post-game commentary and the next morning’s “best commercials” talk show chatter. Commuter radio, print, and YouTube dialed up the urgency in the final hours on Monday.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea:
AIDS is no longer top-of-mind for Americans. Yet we’re on the verge of achieving the most important milestone to date in the global fight, where it is possible we could end mother-to-child HIV transmission by the end of 2015. And we know: people want to join a cause that can be won.

As a powerful demonstration of Bank of America’s new brand promise – Life’s Better When We’re Connected –
we created a simple action that would signal to the world that we can uniquely reignite support for this cause at scale. We invited our worldwide employees and customers to jumpstart the movement, and built an innovative social and cross-channel paid media program to build momentum behind (RED)’s largest brand participation effort ever.

For all those who connected via this one action – downloading U2’s new song ‘Invisible’ for free – Bank of America donated $1 to (RED)’s fight to deliver an AIDS-free generation.