Rabo Direсt Promo, Case study MONEY TREE by Zing Australia

Category: Financial Services, incl. Investor Relations and Corporate Finance

Advertiser: RABO DIRECT

Product/Service: ONLINE SAVINGS ACCOUNT

Head of Events & Experiential: Kate Whitehair (Zing)

Strategy & Planning Director: Jocelyne Simpson (Zing)

Account Director: Trisha Routedge (Zing)

Managing Director: Preya McMahon (Zing)

Media placement: Broadcast Outreach - Sunrise - TV Breakfast - 24th May 2010

Media placement: Press Releases - Adelaide Now - 24th May 2010

Media placement: Press Releases - MX Melbourne - 24th May 2010

Media placement: Blogger Outreach - Sarah Wilson's Blog - 26th May 2010

Media placement: Online Outreach - News.com.au - 26th May 2010

Media placement: Online Outreach - Mumbrella - 27th May 2010

Media placement: Press Releases - Daily Telegraph - 7th June 2010

Media placement: Press Releases - Herald Sun - 7th June 2010

Media placement: Press Releases - Hobart Mercury - 7th June 2010

Media placement: Press Releases - Adelaide Advertiser - 7th June 2010

Summary of the Campaign

Challenger brand RaboDirect planned to go up against Australia’s big banks, releasing a promotional savings account rate with interest to rival any other on the market.

RaboDirect had research that showed Australian’s were losing billions of dollars a year by not actively managing the interest they earned. We used this core insight to form the foundation of the PR strategy.

We wanted to show Australian’s that they were being lazy with their savings and that it was costing them a fortune. To make this point, we planted a Money Tree covered in $8,000 worth of $5 bills in a high traffic location in Sydney. We suspected that people would ignore the free money on the tree just as they were ignoring the potential free money sitting in their accounts as lost interest, and herein lay a great story.

To help tell the story we had a candid camera on location and also invited Australia’s top behavioural psychologist to be on hand to record and analyze people’s response. The psychologist impressions added impetus to the stories to sell to media. Footage was used to create a video, which was uploaded to YouTube and seeded out online through bloggers.

The Situation

RaboDirect is a challenger retail online bank.

Australia’s big four banks have a stranglehold on banking/savings in Australia.

The 2010 RaboDirect National Savings Survey showed that AU$4.7 billion is lost each year by Australians foregoing interest by not moving their savings to higher interest bearing accounts.

RaboDirect saw an opportunity to shake Australian’s out of their complacency, shock them with their attitude to money, to help raise awareness and interest in their new high interest savings account.

This mammoth statistic was the perfect opportunity for us to highlight the situation through PR and get Australians rethinking about their savings.

The Goal

RaboDirect’s target audience is the customers of the other large banks with savings accounts. An AB demographic - focus on women.

Objectives:

• Encourage Australians to move their savings from current savings accounts to new RaboDirect online savings account

• Cause a stir as only a challenger brand can

• Generate traditional and non traditional media coverage

• Noise had to last beyond launch

Using the statistic of $4.7 billion in lost savings, it became increasingly clear that Australians are apathetic about maximising their savings. Internal research also proved many do not even know what interest rate they are getting currently.

The Strategy

We wanted to create a situation that would confront people and make them think about money and their attitude to it.

We then wanted to encapsulate that into the findings of a social experiment and have a top psychologist comment on it and turn that into a media story.

We created a situation where this complacency to money was tested. We confronted with people with the ultimate symbol of easy money - a tree full of free money in a central Sydney hub.

This candid-camera social experiment was designed to find out if people would ignore the free money on the tree just as they were ignoring the potential free money sitting in their accounts as lost interest.

By filming the experiment we were able to add a second prong to our strategy and reach and engage a wider online audience.

Execution

We planted a tree covered in $8,000 of real money in a high traffic location in Sydney to grab attention and conducted an unbranded social experiment. We filmed people’s reactions to the tree with hidden cameras and a psychologist was on hand to analyze the responses and create a report for PR purposes.

We used footage from the 'stunt' to create a video covering the spectrum of responses. Once compiled (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES02s9MXZ3s), we linked the footage to the campaign messaging, introduced branding, posted a video on YouTube and seeded to all of our networks.

For the media sell in we had the idea, the footage, the report and the psychologist. We led with Sunrise (top Australian morning TV show) as our big bang and set up an exclusive with News Ltd (main daily state newspapers nationally) to syndicate the story. In addition we approached bloggers with the story and the visual content.

Documented Results

- Contributed to achieving sales targets within three months of a six month target

- Encouraged Australians to move their savings to the new RaboDirect online savings account

- Total reach of over 42 million (Australian population is 22.5 million); 100% positive messaging to cause a stir as only a challenger brand can

- Coverage in every Australian state daily newspaper and a number of influential blogs; spokesperson appeared on Sunrise (Australia’s top rating morning TV show)

- Generated traditional and non traditional media coverage

- Over 250,000 video views on YouTube and counting; copycat videos

Noise to last beyond launch

- ROI of 5.6:1 (industry standard is 3:1)

- 5,000 people took the video and embedded it onto other social media platforms (Datalicious**) Noise to last beyond launch

- Activity drove 9,000 new visitors to rabodirect.com.au and these visitors spent 10% more time on the site (Datalicious**)

** Datalicious - independent online research