SBAB | The Loss Generator

Insight

SBAB has been a state owned mortgage loan company since 1985, and is now on a journey to becoming a “real” bank, with all the bank services offered by the commercial banks. The first step on this journey is to make people start using SBAB for more than mortgage loans. Hence, SBAB offers a savings account with high interest rate, no fees and free account withdrawals. 

The marketing challenge is to increase the number of people opening a savings account with SBAB, and to increase the weekly deposits to these accounts. UM recognised that people have very low trust in banks in general. The four big commercial banks have a market share of 80%+ and are hugely profitable. They offer poor savings account interest rates with restrictions regarding withdrawals. 

SBAB - as a former mortgage loan organisation - is strong in big cities in the mortgage loan category. But its market share for savings account is low, and so is the awareness of SBAB’s offer. However, SBAB is more trustworthy, being a state owned bank without the heritage of poor conditions for saving accounts. 

UM built a strategy focusing on challenging the big commercial banks, comparing the SBAB offer to the other banks. It wanted to explain what low interest rates actually mean to your savings in an easy understandable, challenging and fun way. The overall objective was to increase number of savings accounts, and increase weekly deposits. 

Strategy

UM wanted to build on the fact that the overall trust in the big commercial banks is low. Everyone is aware of low interest rates and high profits among the big banks – still the churn to smaller banks is very low. It’s a low engagement category – and it’s very complex. And even if banking is a very cluttered media category, the big banks don’t advertise savings accounts – for obvious reasons. 

Given this, UM wanted to highlight how much money Swedes lose by having poor conditions on their savings accounts. UM strived to make this tangible, explaining the amount by relating to actual situations. How much money do Swedes lose in a week, a year, while waiting on a bus, while reading a newspaper etc.? 

The agency created “The Loss Generator” on the SBAB website and in social media. “The Loss Generator” is a counter, showing how much Swedes have lost since January 1 by saving money in bank accounts with low interest rates – i.e. visualising the difference to the SBAB offer. At any time you can push “Stop the loss”, and the generator tells you what the loss is worth to date – transferred to what that money would buy; number of cinema visits, entries to the amusement park, etc. 

“The Loss Generator” went out in broad media, always relating to the consumer’s situation; when commuting, when reading a newspaper, when visiting a web site etc. 

Execution

UM aimed to show how much loss Swedes generate by poor savings account conditions through smart use of media:

Dailies: Focusing on Stockholm/Göteborg/Malmö, UM bought three consecutive ads/pages. The first ad said “This second, Swedes lose 499 SEK”, the second “Tomorrow you will have lost 43.099.072 SEK”, and the third “In one year, you will lose (gulp) 15.731.161.388 SEK” 

Outdoor: 
- Bus shelters: “2 minutes to the bus? Then you will lose 59.860 SEK on low interest rates” 
- Underground: UM built a series of ads in the escalators, where the numbers increased: “Every second, Swedes lose 499 SEK on low interest rates”, “Now you’ve lost 2.494 SEK” …etc. 
- Streets: UM used digital Eurosize ads, where they brought out “The Loss Generator” in real time counters on billboards. These street furniture where strategically bought outside or nearby big bank offices. 

Online: Dynamic ads, reflecting the environment, e.g.: “When you Facebook for a quarter, Swedes have lost 449.100 kr. on low interest rates” …etc. 

TV: A generic spot, explaining how much Swedes lose in a year, portraying the commercial banks a profitmaking clowns. 

UM deployed two campaigns like this in 2013; in May/June, and in October/November.

Results

The results in 2013 were beyond all expectations, a pyramidal success. 

- After the first campaign (May/June) the weekly baseline deposits increased by 279% 
- After the second campaign (Oct/Nov) the average weekly deposits had increased by +663%, Q1 average compared to Q4 average. 
- The market share for savings has also increased for SBAB: from 1.84% (Jan-Nov 2012) to 2.69% (Jan-Nov 2013). This is the highest market share increase among all banks… 
- …but the SBAB share of “new” savings money in 2013 is 15%. This means that SBAB is number one in market share for new money – even bigger than the commercial banks, which have a far higher market share of the total savings. 
- In October-November alone, the SBAB market share of new money is 34%! To put this in perspective, the overall market share (all savings) is 2.69%, as mentioned. 
- Number of SBAB savings accounts increased from June 30, 2013 to December 31, 2013 by 24%... 
- …and to total savings amount with SBAB increased by 45% during the same period! 

- Campaign recognition: 46% (finance category average: 30%) 
- Liking: 27% (finance average: 18%) 
- “The campaign is relevant for me”: 36% (finance average: 19%) 

To put the spend level and campaign size into a Swedish a perspective: the SOV for SBAB in 2013 is 8,5%, making SBAB the 5th biggest spender in this category. Hence, the campaigns have been medium sized campaigns. 

The first step on the journey of transferring SBAB into a “real” bank has been highly successful. And the journey continues in 2014, when new services will be launched.

BRAND:

SBAB

CATEGORY:

Financial

REGION:

Sweden

DATE:

May - December 2013

AGENCY:

UM

MEDIA CHANNEL:

Online,Out-of-Home,Print,TV

Gillette Venus| Tag The Weather Gillette Venus

Insight

GILLETTE’S PROBLEM: WHEN WOMEN ARE SHIVERING, THEY’RE NOT SHAVING!

Sweden gets very cold in winter. For five months of the year, sub-zero temperatures engulf the region, and darkness and snow force people to stay indoors. As a result, Swedes don’t shave much. After all, why should they bother when they have to swaddle themselves in coats, thermal underwear and tights just to leave the house?

This is bad news for Gillette, whose Venus ladies shaving range suffers from a double-digit sales slump every winter.

Gillette realised that during the colder months, the brand’s biggest challenge is not rival razor products - it’s the weather.

While Gillette’s female target like to regularly shave and show off their legs in the summer, that routine becomes less and less frequent in the winter. The brand's key insight was that it needed to re-programme this behaviour to boost frequency of shaving and increase sales of Gillette Venus.

Gillette’s major problem, of course, was that it couldn’t change the weather, but could it help its target dream about sunnier climates, imagine long hot days, remember what summer feels like?

And, if Gillette could get them thinking warm - if it could really bring that dream warm weather to life - perhaps Gillette could fire up their summer shaving routine.

Strategy

GILLETTE’S STRATEGY: SHARING SOMEONE ELSE’S SUMMER WOULD STOP WOMEN SHIVERING AND START THEM SHAVING AGAIN!

Gillette couldn’t change the weather, but it could change the mind-set of its audience. If Gillette could remind them of summer – by helping them share and swap stories and pictures with women in warmer climates – Gillette could emotionally engage them with their summer shaving routine.

Gillette needed to start that process early to remain relevant during the cold season. It knew its target was increasingly mobile and smartphone dependent, spending hours plugged in to social networks and online photo-sharing platforms. In Sweden, women use Instagram twice as much as men and 39% use it on a daily basis.

Gillette would give women the chance to win a trip somewhere warmer, by entering Gillette’s photo contest on Instagram. For the chance to win, women would have to submit photos of the coldest places in Sweden, labelling them with Gillette’s #venuscompetition hashtag. This would be great content to share – while painfully cold, there’s nothing prettier than a sparkling blanket of snow. Gillette’s snap-happy women wouldn’t be able to resist.

A specially selected jury of female bloggers from sunny Florida, Brazil and Australia, would comment on the pictures and select daily favourites – giving Gillette’s photographers social fame and moving them closer to the holiday.

Keeping shaving on women’s mind, Gillette would offer a discount on Venus products to anyone posting a picture. Uniquely, this discount would be based on the weather conditions at their GPS-stamped location. The colder the weather, the bigger the discount. A partnership with an online retail brand would make purchase just a tap away.

Top fashion bloggers would also spread the word about Sweden’s weather – by showing sun-worshipping local Miami residents just how cold it was in Stockholm. Gillette would use their reactions – and photos – to create more sharable content on Facebook and the Venus website. 

Execution

SHARING PHOTOS AND STORIES LED TO SAVINGS ON SHAVING! 

In January 2013, in the middle of the Swedish winter, Gillette launched the Gillette Venus ‘Tag the Weather’ competition website and made the tough climate conditions work in its favor. 

To win a holiday to Miami, consumers took photos of their winter weather and published them on Instagram; the campaign site automatically found them thanks to the hashtag used. Each photo was instantly given a bad weather score. Based on geo-location, the colder the conditions recorded (based on historical weather data) the higher the score.  

Consumers could convert this into a dynamic discount for the Venus Proskin Sensitive. The lower the temperature, the bigger the discount. Gillette’s unique partnership with Halens, the region’s biggest online fashion and personal care retailer, meant that purchase was always just a click away. 

Gillette’s message combined display, video and blog partnerships on mobile and web. Tag the Weather appeared on blog portal Devote.se and fashion blogs such as Tyras.se. It created videos showing Swedes talking to Americans in Miami about their weather and asking if they wanted to swap locations. They were hosted on YouTube, Facebook, female blogs and the campaign site.

Above-the-line ads invited women to show off their everyday weather to a unique jury of sun-spoiled bloggers (Steffi from Miami, Alana from Rio, Chrystal from Sydney), who also wrote about the competition and extreme weather in Sweden.

Wherever possible Gillette’s shivering target was exposed to the warmer weather being enjoyed by women elsewhere. 

Results

SHARING PICTURES LED TO SALES HEATING UP BY 570%

In just two weeks Gillette attracted more than 5,800 Instagram photos – the highest number ever in Sweden. Overall, Gillette reached 444,500 Instagram users earning nearly 130,000 likes. The campaign site attracted more than 160,000 unique visitors – 80% via a mobile device.

In total, Gillette reached three million unique mobile devices across the region, while Facebook and Instagram activity reached 91% of all Swedish women 18-35. 

Gillette’s response-led tactic generated incredible sales. The impact on sales of was incredible. During the campaign online sales of Venus Proskin Sensitive increased 570% and blades were up 100%. While in-store sales were boosted by 36%.

BRAND:

Gillette Venus

BRAND OWNER:

Procter & Gamble

CATEGORY:

Toiletries/Cosmetics

REGION:

Sweden

DATE:

2013

AGENCIES:

MediaCom

Saatchi & Saatchi

MEDIA CHANNEL:

Digital,Mobile,Online