January 2020. Brazilians were struggling against a severe crisis. Economic and political instability led 60% of households to indebtedness.

Unemployment was skyrocketing and uncertainty was installed all over the country.

While many banks were airing the same old New Year's manifests on TV, Banco do Brasil, the biggest bank in Latin America, needed to show that it really understood what Brazilians were going through and, more importantly, it had to do something about it. After all, "taking care of what's valuable to people" is literally its brand purpose.

So, Banco do Brasil decided to take action, helping people to pay their debts and get back on their feet, using something they have plenty (instead of the money they don't have): talent.

People might lose their jobs, but they don’t lose their skills, right?

With this insight in mind, we decided to create a new currency to help Brazilians to pay their debts. We made Banco do Brasil the first bank to accept talent as an unprecedented payment solution, instead of money.

People sent their videos showcasing their skills. The most impactful and useful ones were picked up by the bank, turning their views into real money to pay their debts.

This is how Banco do Brasil innovated by creating a totally new product that changed the way banks charge people in debt.

Offering a new customer experience that stimulates clients to come to us, instead of chasing after them, we turned real people into influencers and the brand’s biggest ambassadors, boosting the social reach of the idea and the engagement on social media way beyond the established goals.

For the first time in history, a bank found a way to monetize videos made by its clients and accept them as payment. Moreover, it connected people that had talent to share with millions of Brazilians wanting to learn new skills.

To define strategy, we started with consumer research. Surveys pointed to the indebtedness of Brazilian families, revealing the main problem: most people didn’t know how to pay their increasing debts.

Then, we researched Brazilian habits and found out in Google reports that, in 2019, there was a huge increase in searches for DIY videos on YouTube.

From cooking recipes to makeup tutorials, we noticed a gigantic list of user-generated contents with one thing in common: people, no matter how educated, have always something to teach. On the other end, all of us have always something to learn.

We just had to match all these individuals in an unexpected way.

Based on the insight, we came up with a platform that helps Brazilians to pay their debts using their best skill: creativity.

"I Owe Views" transformed Brazilians' talent into a currency, rewarding the best homemade tutorial videos with money, so that the creators could pay their debts.

This way, we created more than just a beautiful New Year message. We offered a simple and handy way out of indebtedness for people who didn't know what else to do.

During the campaign, all creators became the real brand ambassadors, sharing original content and getting paid as if they were well-know and stablished digital influencers.

During the 15 days of the campaign, "I Owe Views" platform had more than 3 million unique visitors.

The campaign led to 97% of positive reactions on social media, a record for financial category in Brazil.

Creators earned more than U$ 300.000,00 to pay their debts.

More than 40 hours of user-generated content were made available on YouTube.

Up until now, anyone can benefit from this educational content, learning some new skills to overcome financial difficulties, make more money and pay off their debts.