Situation: With new disruptors and fintechs entering the market, PayPal Australia faced the risk of being positioned as the incumbent payment provider, the ‘old guard’ of digital payments.

Corruption revelations and the Royal Commission saw trust in financial institutions fall to record low levels (i). Banks threw money at the problem, outspending PayPal by as much as $73 to $1, and attempted to distract Australians with retail-focused messaging (ii).

Brief: Reinvigorate PayPal’s mCommerce Index (launched 2016) to ensure PayPal stood out in this sea of distrust, outsmarting competitors and reaching new audiences.

Objectives:

· Arm Australian small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) with practical insights

· Reach new audiences in new formats and forums, maximising information available through an integrated approach to assets and materials

· Create a business development tool for PayPal, giving the sales and marketing teams valuable insights to share with their customers

In addition to creating a fully integrated media and internal business engagement campaign, PayPal recognised an opportunity to extend the research report to reach a key segment not previously covered by the mCommerce index and to tie into ever-growing numbers – female entrepreneurs and business builders.

We partnered with Business Chicks, Australia’s largest and most influential community for women and a trusted source within the business and media space to condense our long-standing report into a Masterclass video ‘How to make your business more mobile friendly’ which provided tips, advice and tactics to help business owners up-skill and ultimately drive sales.

We also developed a range of assets designed specifically for targeted use by our sales and business developments teams, government relations teams and marketing and communications functions. This was an end to end creative strategy with clear business objectives in mind.

PayPal’s primary audience are SMBs who sell online and are prospective/existing customers. Since launching in 2016, the mCommerce Index has supported SMBs through digital transformation by providing insights and advice about mCommerce and other trends disrupting retail.

The Index is split across two waves each year – the May Trends Report, and the September Index. Ahead of the September edition, we knew that SMB owners were increasingly time poor. One of the biggest challenges they face is the amount of information available and knowing how to apply it. PayPal research also showed that 86% of SMB owners felt stressed in the lead up to Christmas, because they knew 43% of their revenue comes from to Christmas .

Based on these insights, we developed an engaging and accessible strategy for SMBs to digest report insights and understand how they could apply them to set themselves up for success before Christmas.

Media Relations: We executed a multi-tiered earned media strategy targeting key broadcast, radio, print and online publications, leveraging key insights and trends - the rise of subscription models and online marketplaces – to create a timely and mediagenic narrative.

Business Chicks PayPal Australia’s Masterclass – ‘How to make your business more mobile friendly’

Key outtakes - ‘Here’s The 3 Things You Need to Know If You Have an Online Business in 2018’ - were included in an EDM sent to Business Chicks’ 110,000 subscribers and amplified via LinkedIn & Facebook.

Marketing Outputs:

• Owned content on the PayPal Australia blog, emails and web banners;

• Featured stories in the PayPal Biz Newsletter;

• Optimised experience for SMBs using an updated landing page

• Social media advertising and sponsored posts across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

• Sharing eye-catching illustrated creative assets to demonstrate thought leadership and knowledge of SMBs.