Situation: Banco de Bogotá, Colombia's first bank with a history of over 150 years, faced a severe reputational crisis when an internal memo from the bank leaked on social media, triggering a corporate scandal.

Transcription of the leaked memo:

"Thank you to all those who enjoyed the End of Year party in a civilized manner. Everyone else should stop and reflect on the behavior they exhibited during the party, which was tarnished by events that are now widely known by their coworkers and superiors."

The leak unleashed a storm of gossip, mockery, and speculation about what might have happened at that party.

Brief: We had to respond to this reputational crisis. (It was not a brief to amplify another idea)

Objectives: We had to capitalize on the trend and gossip generated by the crisis and turn it into a positive conversation.

We responded immediately to the crisis by releasing a traditional statement on social media, but it had an unexpected twist:

“The suspicions that posed a threat to our reputation, suggesting that we are a 'party bank,' were thoroughly addressed.

Yes, we are.”

And just how much of a party bank is Bank of Bogota?

Well, enough to sponsor Colombia’s largest music festival and launch a party platform hosting concerts. Enough for the oldest bank in Colombia to connect with generation Z who are attracted to fintechs and neobanks

Information: Given that Banco de Bogotá was considered a traditional bank, it was disconnected from younger audiences. It was imperative that we acted swiftly in the face of the crisis and surpassed the volume of negative comments that arose on social media. Key message: we are a party bank. Target audience: Generation Z. Creation and distribution of assets: The buzz generated by gossip reached over 18 thousand interactions, so we needed to surpass that figure. Our approach was to transform the crisis into an opportunity to generate positive conversations on social media and connect with younger audiences through music and concerts.

We promptly responded to the crisis with a conventional statement addressed to the public on social media. But just when it seemed like we were about to offer explanations about what happened, the statement took an unexpected turn. We openly acknowledged that we were "a party bank" and seized this opportunity to launch a platform for concerts and musical events, connecting with Generation Z. In this way, we surpassed the noise of the scandal on social media.

We surpassed the peak of the "gossip" conversation by 9 points. We became a Trending Topic. In one weekend, we reached the same number of leads as a paid campaign in 30 days. We trended and were the peak of conversation, achieving +3K interactions, reaching +1.1M people, and 5.2M impressions. We fueled the gossip and using it to our advantage helped us grow positive sentiment by 67%.