Bank Of America: The Business of Life

Credits & Description:

BRAND: Bank of America
CATEGORY: Financial
REGION: United States
DATE: January - December 2015
AGENCY: Starcom Mediavest
MEDIA OWNER: Vice Magazine
MEDIA CHANNEL: Branded Content,Online
Insight
Research shows that the majority of American millennials trust advice given out by way of strangers on social media more than big corporations and institutions, including banks.
Everyone knows the doom and gloom financial facts. It’s been widely reported that on average, millennials will be the first generation to be financially worse off than their parents. Their average student debt tops $27,000, while more than half of college graduates from the class of 2010 aren’t even working in jobs that require a bachelor’s degree. Plus, millennials switch banks twice as often as other groups, lured by the latest draw from a financial service or financial tech company.
But it’s not all depressing. This group, currently 18-34 years of age, is about to enter their prime earning years and are expected to inherit $30 Trillion from their Baby Boomer parents. The problem for banks is millennials are more likely to trust “that guy on the internet” over credible financial institutions.
Bank of America needed to redefine its role to this generation – one who believes in self-directing their own money management yet acknowledges their lack of financial expertise – so they could see how a bank fits into their lives. In the journey to earn consumer trust that it lacked as an institution, the real challenge with millennials was to get to their hearts and minds with a different voice.
Strategy
Millennials are not shy about voicing their need for financial advice. They admit that they need help. It’s who they are willing to take help from that Bank of America wanted to change.
The need for objective financial advice and education is what inspired Bank of America to create the “Better Money Habits” digital platform and site. It was designed to provide unbiased financial education and tools for consumers to better understand and manage their own finances. In turn, yes, the hope is it inspires loyalty to Bank of America among users, but overall its primary purpose is to uplift the credibility of the financial industry and the brand.
Starcom MediaVest Group's task with millennials was to build up more visibility and usage for Better Money Habits and ultimately improve perceptions for the bank. But how could it do that when “that guy” – you know, the one from social media - seemed to have permanently stolen the spotlight away from credible institutions?
It was time for Bank of America to take back the microphone and give it to a voice that could provide credible financial education and information to this generation wary of the suits on Wall Street. The agency's idea was to develop original content that would provide millennials with the information they needed from a source they believe in. SMG knew that voice could not be its own. But, it could surround it with Better Money Habits to inch up the brand’s favourability.
Execution
In conjunction with Vice, the brand leveraged its trusted voice and created a web series called “The Business of Life” that took viewers through a range of highly topical financial subjects in a newsroom-with-audience style setup. Billed as, “A fresh perspective on the most important issues of our time, as told through the facts, figures, dollars, and cents that shape our world”, 12 half hour episodes were hosted by journalist from VICE and The Daily Beast/Newsweek Michael C. Moynihan with a live studio audience.
Each episode brought together an eclectic panel of writers, thinkers, policy experts and scholars to break down complicated financial topics and engage in live discussion. It tackled subjects such as the following in webisodes of the same name including, “Why Pay Your Taxes”, “How the US Workforce is Changing” and “Why is College so Expensive”.
Bank of America’s Better Money Habits branding surrounded the series on the VICE News site and it was honest to the viewer that the brand helped to underwrite production; however, the content was purely unbiased coming from this publisher, highly credible among the millennial audience. SMG teed up Better Money Habits financial literacy content and directed viewers to engage with the site for more.
The agency utilised social and digital media to gain viewership of the series along with cross-promotion throughout VICE’s owned and operated properties. In addition, it built up an audience pool among viewers for remarketing purposes and delivered Better Money Habits content and messaging to them later on throughout the web.
Results
Bank of America knows the journey to gaining back millennials’ trust is a long haul, but with “The Business of Life”, it made significant steps towards doing just that.
“The Business of Life” improved brand sentiment. Positive favourability of Bank of America rose more than 70% and perception of the bank as credible and trustworthy increased 28% among those aware of or who had engaged with the content.
It gave Millennials credible financial perspective from a trustworthy source. And, they listened. “The Business of Life” series earned 5.3 million total views. The vast majority of these views were indeed from millennials. Plus, one in five viewers completed full episodes, which is 31% higher than VICE’s benchmark.
The total VICE audience who visited Bettermoneyhabits.com were more engaged, with on-site engagement metrics 50% higher than average Better Money Habits’ users.
The campaign also earned a higher rate of social sharing than Bank of America’s previous records with a 2.9x higher retweet rate.