The UK is a hugely competitive environment in terms of branded content. The ISBA (the Voice of British Advertisers) estimates that client spend on owned media has risen by 25% in each of the past two years and continues to grow. Consumers are spoilt for choice in this regard and achieving cut-through for any brand is a challenge. Getting consumers to actively engage with and share content from a financial services brand is particularly fraught with difficulty.

NatWest requires that any advertising material, including content, adheres to and includes a predefined list of terms and conditions. All branded content ideas are also required to go through a rigorous internal risk department before getting client approval.

Our strategy was to target people whose friends owe them money, so they would deliver the content for us to the people in need of NatWest’s app. Personalised emails invited recipients to watch their video. The fact it came from friends rather than the bank made them much more likely to engage; 2 in 3 emails were clicked through.

The campaign launched in an interactive YouTube homepage takeover. The IOU Team’s eye-catching characters gestured from the banner for users to engage. Other rich media banners allowed users to create and share videos without leaving the site they were on.

AUDIENCE: The homepage takeover generated 1.58 million interactions in 24 hours, smashing the YouTube benchmark by 340,000. 2 in every 3 people who received an IOU Team email clicked through to watch their video.

CLIENT: NatWest/RBS saw a 22% uplift in app usage, a 26% increase in the number of transactions made using the app, and 153% more traffic to the app webpage (with 5,193 views on launch day).

In the hostile environment of financial services, getting people to engage with anything is a challenge. We convinced the client to push the boundaries in terms of technology, creative execution and tone of voice, to deliver their most successful campaign to date.