The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) ‘UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing’, updated March 1, 2011, covers all aspects of digital and social marketing activity carried out by brands within the UK market. This entry is compliant with the word and spirit of that Code.

UK regulation regarding branded entertainment, advertiser-funded programming and product placement fall under the remit of Ofcom and its Ofcom Broadcasting Code (March 31, 2013) and is not relevant to this entry, which concerns itself solely with digital and social activity relating to the NatWest ‘Pigs By Kids’ campaign.

In order to resonate with parents, nostalgic for their own childhood savings experiences with NatWest, as well as their digitally-savvy children, the bank created a crafting competition communicated to families through a NatWest microsite and social channels.

By partnering a bespoke network of 30 parenting bloggers, NatWest was able to accelerate engagement with its social activity. Influencers were given ‘Pigs by Kids’ assets, to share among their communities.

NatWest content delivered across social media via a strategic mix of owned and earned media exceeded all the bank’s KPIs on engagement with the ‘Pigs by Kids’ competition and its associated content.

NatWest’s aim was to maximise competition entries to ‘Pigs by Kids’ and get children and parents thinking again about savings and financial responsibility.

‘Pigs by Kids’ achieved:

Page impressions across the campaign totalling 405,000 page impressions (39% over target of 290,000).

In excess of 2000 video views.

More than 2000 children entered the competition.

Full engagement by the bespoke network of 30 parenting bloggers throughout the campaign.

Extensive national and regional newspaper and radio coverage of the campaign.

As a result of the success of ‘Pigs by Kids’, NatWest will use the pigs in further social campaigns in 2013.