HSBC is an unexpected presence in the space of branded entertainment. It’s not every day that you find a bank standing firmly in the entertainment world - especially in today’s financial services climate, with heightened regulations and consumer confidence at a low.

Previous to the launch of HSBC NOW, branded entertainment was rarely, if ever found in financial services, and considered more a marketing tool for the likes of Coca Cola or Nike. Consumer companies with an established following and huge brand affinity from a loyal audience.

While the Bank has produced memorable marketing campaigns with fictional characters in TV adverts (a young girl selling lemonade in different currencies) what was missing in the external media was the stories of the real people that make the brand.

As a result, in 2013 we launched our internal channel NOW onto YouTube and Twitter. Rather than a single campaign, it’s an on-going and sustainable channel providing a window onto the extraordinary stories of HSBC’s people around the world.

We share some incredible stories of sacrifice, friendship, generosity and triumph over adversity, as we meet some of the amazing people that make up HSBC's global family.

Development – We faced two challenges: convincing internal stakeholders to allow employees to share their worlds, and holding enough content to ensure we had frequent stories from around the world

Launch – HSBC NOW launched externally on YouTube on 1st November 2013. To build a library of content, we published the most popular stories each day for two weeks.

Following launch, new stories are published to YouTube every Friday, and shared with Twitter and LinkedIn followers.

Reaction - Explosion of positive comments on LinkedIn page as people view emotional storytelling on an externally branded HSBC space for the first time

Internal

• 70% of employees feel more connected to HSBC after watching NOW

• 75% of employees say that viewing NOW gives them a stronger understanding of business priorities and helps them to feel pride in HSBC

• 15% uplift in 'feel part of one global HSBC community'

• 15% uplift in 'would recommend HSBC to friends and family'

• 15% increase in engagement scores for those who have watched HSBC NOW in 2013

• 46,000 views reached per programme by Q4 2013 (up 39% from 2012)

External

• 32,000+ views on YouTube in the first quarter after launch, more than 50 films uploaded (www.youtube.com/hsbcnow)

• 655 users across 69 countries have subscribed to the NOW YouTube channel

• 137,397 views of the Renminbi documentaries (internal and external) – 2 are in top 5 videos that drove subscription to the HSBC NOW YouTube Channel

• 1,019,726 user potential audience reached by @HSBC_NOW since launching in November 2013 and @HSBC_NOW has received 237 tweet mentions (https://twitter.com/HSBC_NOW)

• 4,100 social interactions of HSBC NOW programme content and the number of job clicks increased 30% in the first month (an all-time high), since promoting HSBC NOW via the HSBC LinkedIn page