The first direct Buddies are highly trained individuals offering customers the ultimate, 24/7 concierge-style service. Customers can, via location-based technology on their smartphones, hire first direct Buddies to assist them with anything – carry their shopping, change their tyre, or conduct their marriage ceremony.

This spoof customer service proposition - absolutely deadpan – became the hook for live stunts, masses of video content and a YouTube hub. The team wrote and produced all content and used a bespoke and highly-targeted seeding plan to deliver paid-for views amongst our target audience – also generating organic growth. We sought editorial placements - so Buddy was viewed as content rather than advertising - and recruited online brand ambassadors and super-users across all social platforms to drive engagement and talkability. The charm of the content and method of dissemination perfectly synced with first direct’s brand values and demonstrated its ‘unbankness’ in the banking sector.

Challenge: highlight first direct’s difference from the rest of the sector.89% of post-campaign survey respondents agreed that this campaign was different to other financial advertising (source: Millward Brown).Challenge: get Buddy content watched, generate talkability and encourage sharing.Featured on the YouTube homepage, the Buddy film has had 240,263 YouTube organic views, over-delivering targets by 22%. Cumulatively, across platforms, the film has 525,074 views and rising. On YouTube alone, total views for all of the Buddy content are 401,081.

39% of viewers said they would talk about the content with friends (source: Millward Brown).