Westpac had a major problem with young Australians (18-29) and was sitting a distant third in terms of consideration out of the big four banks. We were tasked with helping them launch their new 3% savings rate in order to appeal to an audience that simply wasn’t engaging with us. We understood that we needed to move away from traditional bank advertising and talk to young people without being paternal or patronising.

Our objectives were:

1. Drive action via click-throughs.

2. Increase brand consideration

3. Increase new to bank customers.

Our strategic insights inspired us to create a campaign that didn't lecture young Australian’s but found an exciting and creative way to celebrate them. We set out to show that no matter however you made your money, Westpac was here to help you save it. To do this we found real stories online of all the weird and wonderful ways young people are making money. From chauffeuring pugs to retrieving lost shoes, we worked with a team of young animators to bring their stories to life creating five, 15-second animated films. In addition to our five films, we created gifs, digital banners, website takeovers, and even popped up on Tinder.

Not only was our strategic way in a departure from where we had been, but our tonal insights also pushed the creative boundaries of our execution, leaving us with animated films that broke the model of traditional banking advertising.

We delved deep into qualitative and quantitative research around youth culture and ran workshops to challenge the myths that young Australians aren't good with money. When we pulled our findings together we discovered two incredible insights that guided the work. Firstly that young Australians don’t define success by what they have, but how they get it. And secondly, that despite being seen as a cohort that is bad with money, they are actually the nation's best savers. So we flipped the script on banking norms and direct advertising. Instead of lecturing 18 - 29s on how to save, and the benefits of our product we created a celebratory digital campaign that hero'ed how they were making money. At every touch point, we directed users to make the most of their hard-earned cash and open a 3% savings account on the Westpac website.

To create scale, we ditched the bank's usual heavily branded broadcast TVC placements in favour of a digital campaign that featured prominently in key channels of influence for our audience. Our five animated films flooded Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat channels. Our media implementation plan included gifs, digital banners, website takeovers and even spots on Tinder. This approach allowed us to maintain the campaign over a three month period from 1st July 2020 until Sep 30th 2020.

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