Introduce Upgrade, a new banking service model targeting the most important clients of UniCredit Bank Romania (UCB), to the Affluents’ customers segment: those who entered the UniCredit Bank universe at 1 - 3K euro income/month and were now stepping up towards >4K euro. If the launch was to be loud in terms of both quality and quantity, the new banking product could positively impact the over-all business of UCB in terms of loans and deposits’ volumes.

Communication objectives:

Engage 300 affluent clients @the launch event

Nation-wide awareness 100 articles

Reach 5 MM Romanians

Business objectives:

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Increase loans vol +5%

Increase deposits vol +15%

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All in all, we needed to launch a new product, we were facing a challenging consumer target, and the expectations to boost both brand and business were high. We had to find the point of maximum impact and build our launch event accordingly.

Internal UniCredit Bank studies revealed an interesting fact about Affluents: when you earn more, you afford more – and unlock a new lifestyle, with new prices/rules/opportunities, you want your bank to step up its game and convince you of its upgraded approach on banking servicing that can help you deal with all this newness. A valuable insight that delivered us the key to our approach. We needed the ultimate message vehicle/influencer to spell U P G R A D E to our Affluents and potential Affluent clients, as a crisp and clear demonstration of how a life can be upgraded by UCB, even after previously skyrocket evolving.

We needed a consumer launch to make prime time news, yet not via a Ripley’s Believe It or Not type of comms gimmick, but an A-class activation to build brand and deliver an A-HA moment when pulling the curtain on the new product.

On May 10th we launched Upgrade, our new service model together with: 400 affluent clients, 11 top media and 1 AI Robot to become the owner of a UniCredit Bank card. Such a historical moment needed a historical frame. High standards met top-notch tech KOLs, at The Romanian National Museum of Art, within the Romanian Royal Palace. George Buhnici, leading Romanian voice on tech&auto (>500K fans) hosted the event. He shared the encounter with Sophia on all owned digital channels and featured an interview with her on iLikeIT, the most popular tech&gadgets TV show in Romania. The country tuned in to see Sophia on Romania’s no.1 station – PRO TV, which aired a 50” spot of the launch and the historical moment when she was handed the card by a top UniCredit representative. Her testimonial was broadcasted @Brand Minds for CEE C-level business audience and published across UCB digital channels.

Upgrade reached 6.7 million Romanians via 135 online, print, radio and TV features, worth 144K media value, and 400 Affluents were present at the historical event. The launch exceeded all initial communication KPIs. Social media was taken by storm by hundreds of futuristic selfies taken with Sophia at the event, that boosted social avatars of UniCredit Bank’s strategic clients’ segment. Furthermore, Sophia’s testimonial gathered more than 1MM views on UniCredit Bank’s Youtube channel.