Commonwealth Bank: PAY YOUR MATE BACK WEEK

Credits & Description:

Advertiser: COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA
Agency: ONE GREEN BEAN
Category: Best Acting Performance
Account Executive: Annabelle Cottee (One Green Bean)
Senior Account Manager: Caspar Nixon (One Green Bean)
Account Manager: Jarrod Baker (One Green Bean)
General Manager: Jemma Gabb (One Green Bean)
Senior Account Manager: Jess Cluff (One Green Bean)
Social Media Manager: Mitch Phillips (One Green Bean)
Digital Business Director: Matt Kendall (One Green Bean)
Account Executive: Shadia Galal (One Green Bean)
Senior Account Executive: Jackie Gray (One Green Bean)
Executive Creative Director: Kat Thomas (One Green Bean)
Community Manager: Will Salkeld (One Green Bean)
Account Coordinator: Jim Barker (One Green Bean)
Digital Analyst: Kunal Mirchandani (One Green Bean)
Senior Social Media Strategist: Nick Henderson (One Green Bean)

Campaign Description
Commonwealth Bank asked us to reinvigorate consumer demand for their mobile Banking app, CommBank Kaching, among the target demographic of 18-35 year olds. The objective was to drive 100,000 downloads of the app over a six-week period. In response we launched ‘Pay Your Mate Back Week’, a platform to persuade Aussies it’s un-Australian to not pay back debts, and positioned the CommBank Kaching app as the ideal tool to even the slate.The campaign launched with some independent consumer research, which revealed the scale of the mate debt problem in Australia. An online video, starring legendary Australian cricketers David Boon and Brett Lee (the later aligned to the Bank’s wider sponsorship of the game) was released simultaneously, opining that it’s ‘just not cricket’ to shirk paying back mates. The video allowed consumers to share further video messages with their own friends be they shirkers’, ‘stinges’ or ‘phantoms’.The launch was followed by a consumer competition hosted on the Bank’s Facebook page that encouraged Aussie’s to sign up to CommBank Kaching to settle those debts, and the announcement of the latest iteration of CommBank Kaching, CommBank Kaching for Facebook, that generated further earned media traction. The campaign delivered 500 pieces of editorial coverage, reaching 10 million Australians. On Facebook, the campaign generated 8,500 Likes, 2000 comments and 550 shares. There were also four million twitter impressions, and over 26,000 views on YouTube. Best of all, there were over 66,000 Kaching and Kaching for Facebook downloads following the launch.

Client Brief Or Objective
Our goal was to get people talking about CommBank Kaching again; to encourage those who had the app to use it and those who had yet to download it, to do so. We conducted research that revealed debt among friends was a sizeable problem and that there was a perceived stigma attached to requesting payment for debts owed.

Strategy
Owing mates money and being bad at repaying debts seemed at odds with the importance Australians place on mateship. The campaign strategy used this insight to launch a social movement to encourage Aussies to pay back their mates, and positioned CommBank Kaching as the easy solution for debtors and their creditors.Branded content, designed for the earned, owned and paid media channels, was created to engage the target audience with the perceived problem of mate debt, and the CommBank solution. The social by design campaign launched with earned and owned content to drive deep engagement, with paid media support utilised to deliver reach and frequency post launch.

Relevancy
Commonwealth Bank launched CommBank Kaching in late 2011 and from inception saw exceptional growth. Towards the end of the 2012 this growth steadied, prior to reaching market saturation. With Australians having among the highest smartphone ownership rates in the world and remaining market share available, this campaign needed to reinvigorate awareness and demand. This was especially important ahead of the launch of the next iteration of the product - CommBank Kaching for Facebook, due for launch at the end of March 2013.

Execution
The campaign launched with the revelation of the size of the mate debt problem. Australians it seemed were good at borrowing money from mates, but not so good at repaying debts. Concurrently, a solution was presented - a social movement that sought to encourage Aussies to acknowledge the problem and seek redress from mates. Highly shareable video content starring Aussie cricket legends was released with the option for viewers to share the content with their mates that owed them cash. Following the launch period momentum was maintained with a consumer competition hosted on Facebook, which required the download of the app as an entry mechanic.The campaign period ended with the announcement of CommBank Kaching for Facebook. The Australian-first social banking app created additional opportunity for earned and owned channels.Paid media was used across radio, online and social channels to drive engagement with the campaign content and the product.

Effectiveness
The campaign delivered 500 pieces of editorial coverage, reaching 10 million Australians. On Facebook, the campaign generated 8,500 Likes, 2000 comments and 550 shares. There were also four million twitter impressions, and over 26,000 views on YouTube. Best of all, there were 10,000 Kaching downloads during the launch week (double our target), and 66,000 by the campaign's completion.