JPMorgan Chase: SMALL BUSINESS KICKSTARTS A VIRTUOUS CYCLE

Credits & Description:

Advertiser: JPMORGAN CHASE
Agency: KETCHUM
Category: Best Acting Performance
Advertising campaign: CHASE'S MISSION: SMALL BUSINESS KICKSTARTS A VIRTUOUS CYCLE
Senior Vice President/Media Relations: AJ Goodman (Ketchum)
Senior Director: Beverly Kennedy (Chase)
Vice President: Chris Savarese (Ketchum)
Executive Director/Corporate Marketing: Laura L. Rossi (Chase)
Account Executive: Caitlin Vartain (Ketchum)
Managing Account Supervisor: Ally Gellert (Ketchum)
Director Of Partnerships: Dana Meir (Chase)

Campaign Description
The best small business ideas often come from personal experiences. While her brother Ron underwent dialysis treatment, Deb Stanzak promised him she’d create hospital clothing more comfortable and dignified than paper-thin hospital gowns. A year later, Ronwear was born. But too often, small businesses like Ronwear stall. While demand for Ronwear climbed, Deb lacked the capital and the marketing and social media know-how to expand. To help businesses like Ronwear, Chase launched Mission: Small Business, a new and unique kind of grant program that provided both financial and social capital. The program challenged small businesses to build social media communities and market themselves for a chance at 12 grants worth $250,000 each. For thousands, this was their first foray into social media, and Chase gave them all the tools, including a media kit, Facebook images, in-store posters and best practices guides. Nearly 70,000 small businesses applied, with more than 3m casting Facebook votes to support them. Even non-grant recipients raved about the programs’ educational benefits as well as the communities they built. For Deb, a grant recipient, the capital infusion meant a crucial product expansion. What’s more, leveraging Ronwear’s new visibility, Chase secured a Yahoo! placement that led to a national TV moment when Robin Roberts, the “Good Morning America” TV host undergoing chemotherapy, emerged from the hospital looking very stylish and happy in her Ronwear. Chase had pioneered an approach that is today is helping thousands of struggling small business owners ignite a virtuous cycle.

Effectiveness
Amid economic stagnation, traditional and social media were rapturous about Mission:Small Business. The program generated more than 441m monthly media impressions by late September, surpassing the goal by 220% . Chase was featured as a facilitator of small business growth in 73% of traditional media stories. Chase’s share of social media chatter also jumped more than 25% during June. All this attention drove thousands to the site, with missionsmallbusiness.com topping 2.13m unique visitors in June. And in less than 2 months, nearly 70,000 small businesses applied and 3.1m consumers showed support by voting on Facebook, beating estimates by 690% and 782%, respectively. The virtuous cycle continues. Grant recipient UsedCardBoardBoxes has hired several workers and now offers health insurance to all employees, while recipient Lasher Sport just won a Veterans Administration contract to supply wheelchairs with unparalleled mobility, a contract Lasher would never have attempted before.

Relevancy
Chase is the leading small business lender in the US. Last year, a major competitor coined “Small Business Saturday,” a social media campaign promoting one day of small business support, which was resonating with small business owners and consumers. So Chase needed to create a PR program that would go beyond just “one day,” change the lives of small business owners forever, and draw attention to the many ways local small businesses contribute to their communities.

Execution
Before the program’s May launch, we drove interest through small business influencers, including Candace Nelson, owner of Sprinkles Cupcakes, the world’s first cupcake bakery. We even got the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and key small business associations onboard. Meanwhile, we created mission:smallbusiness.com to make applying and voting easy, while maximizing the program’s educational value. Applicants could download our media kit, Facebook photos, sample social posts, blog copy and other tools to jump-start community building, as each applicant worked to gain the 250 Facebook votes needed to advance. From May through June, we blitzed media, leveraging our spokespeople and partners to demonstrate the ease of and the benefits from applying. For the grant recipient announcements in August, we demonstrated the local impact that each $250,000 grant would have, and we activated local PR teams for every recipient to help them obtain the most attention and visibility from their grant.

Client Brief Or Objective
Chase aimed to reassert its reputation and leadership not only as the largest small business lender, but also a growth engine for small businesses and their communities. Small business owners, Chase knows, are cash-strapped, career-driven, and time-starved. They are heavily influenced by other entrepreneurs, but they want to “steer their own ship.”Competitive research showed that other grant programs for small businesses provided little other than money, and offered the non-grant recipients almost nothing. We also learned that our target was eager to build social media communities but had little marketing know-how or staff.

Strategy
As America’s leading small business lender and thus a defacto partner to many small businesses, Chase knows that today’s small businesses are hungry for more than just cash. As consumers demand peer reviews and other social proof before making purchases, small businesses are looking for ways to build their social communities and convert relationships into sales opportunities. So Chase pioneered a new kind of grant program, one that would provide small businesses with both financial and social capital. The grant amount would need to grab attention, but what would set this program apart would be its educational aspects, including the application process itself, which would require participants to mobilize a social community (aided by Chase social media tools and guides). Every applicant would thus gain immeasurable value from the program. And the community building, coupled with the financial grants, would sustain a “virtuous cycle” of local hiring, community engagement, local spending, entrepreneurial dreaming and more hiring.