Findings from two research pieces highlighted significant gaps between consumer expectations and banking capabilities - this became the core message platform which shaped an entire body of content aimed to support banking executives in their journey to digital.
The unique perspective derived from the research informed the marketing communications; influenced the choice, and use, of channels; stimulated audience participation and most importantly, attracted contribution from a community of industry experts, publishers, FinTechs and social influencers to help co‐create content delivered through offline and online channels.
Crucial to the programme was a digital benchmarking tool. With this, banking executives could measure their digital capabilities against others and receive a personalised transformation roadmap. The tool had significant impact on engagement levels and provided Oracle with intelligence into their audience’s priorities, capabilities and challenges.
As a result, the client achieved successful penetration into a highly relevant new audience and generated qualified pipeline worth several tens of million dollars, while the influencer participation provided greater credibility, depth of ideas and extended reach into the retail banking sector through a previously un‐tapped channel.
About the client company
With more than 420,000 customers in more than 145 countries, Oracle is the largest worldwide enterprise IT vendor, offering a comprehensive and fully integrated IT stack of hardware, software, cloud applications, platform services and engineered systems.
Strategy – broader business issues the company is facing
Although strong in the traditional retail banking sector, Oracle had been facing a lack of credibility in the provision of technology services in the new, digital banking space, where business models, approach (digital‐first), culture, and therefore organisational needs, are very different.
Objectives of the campaign
The campaign needed to position Oracle as a credible vendor of digital banking technologies and build trust around its capabilities. It was also required to achieve a pipeline target of $10 million.
The target audience
The campaign was targeted at digital leaders and c-suite banking executives in large global banks. The challenge facing this audience is that today’s customers expect a very different experience from a bank than they did five to 10 years ago – and high street banks are failing to deliver it. The campaign needed to address the disconnect between customer expectations and the traditional banks’ capabilities. And offer the audience a credible solution.
Media, channels or techniques used
Crucial to the success of this campaign was the research it undertook and the consequent deployment of its findings. Two pieces of formal and original research were developed – one into consumer attitudes and expectations of digital banking and the other into the current digital capabilities of 100 global banks.
"Influencer participation provided greater credibility, depth of ideas and extended reach into the retail banking sector through a previously un‐tapped channel."
The findings were assimilated into formal reports and were used to create an inventive digital benchmarking tool, which allowed the target audience to compare their own digital banking landscape to the industry benchmark. Along with their benchmark results, these participants received a personalised assessment and an instant, tailored roadmap to help them on their transformation journey.
The value of this tool to Oracle, besides the credibility gained from offering consultancy to the market, lay in the rich data gained on each participant and their organisations landscape. This customer insight was fed into the follow‐on sales messages that were triggered across email, direct social and telemarketing to organise a meeting or workshop.
Research insights were also pivotal in recruiting to the campaign several leading influencers in the retail banking space, who engaged by commenting on findings, co-creating content and sharing both with their wider networks.
This influencer element effectively created a new channel for the campaign that would operate in close harmony with the more “traditional” digital marketing channels. These included email – carefully targeted selections from the Oracle database; paid media; and organic and paid social (LinkedIn and Twitter).
Communications focused on the content created from the research and calls to action directed recipients to a campaign website, designed to be responsive so audiences could access content from their preferred device. Once prospects had engaged with the campaign, they entered an Eloqua nurture programme.
To further extend the campaign’s reach and influence, channel activity was boosted by partnering globally with three further influential organisations in this space: Finextra (display, email and search); NextBank (using NextBank channels) and LinkedIn (targeting senior banking personnel with display and sponsored posts).
The final channel in the mix was Oracle’s own financial services sales and account teams. Teams were provided with campaign-in‐a‐box style kits so that messaging could be shared with their key target accounts in line with the overall campaign.
The campaign also went offline in the form of regional #Digitalbootcamp events. These were hands-on workshops that brought together the campaign influencers, local FinTech communities and senior bank executives to discuss the issues highlighted by the original research; to design and build the theoretical Digital Bank of the Future; and to explore ways in which this could be achieved in their respective organisations.
Outputs from the bootcamp in turn became campaign content (videos, blogs, infographics) and was fed back online and into subsequent communications. #DigitalBootcamp become one of very few initiatives to be started in Asia-Pacific and later adopted by EMEA and NAM.
By gaining the participation of brands and individuals with high proven influence in the community, the campaign successfully achieved a much deeper penetration into the global banking community. This was crucial not just to extend campaign reach to relevant individuals it may otherwise not have touched, but also to establish Oracle’s credibility as a knowledgeable technology provider who understands the issues of its audience.
To complete the programme, a combination of telephone, email and social media were used as follow‐up activity to further qualify leads and confirm pipeline.
Timescales of the campaign
- Planning and core banking research – October 2014 and on-going
- Digital build – Jan-April 2015
- Campaign asset creation – Jan 2015 and ongoing
- Testing and piloting – April-May 2015
- Research and tool integrated into Finextra environment – live in July 2015
- Core consumer research live Jan 2016.
An always-on strategy means research is ongoing, with Phase 2 of the campaign currently in development.
“MOI brought a completely new perspective on how to engage with an audience, with the influencer programme essentially opening up a brand new channel for us. MOI also impressed us with a completeness of vision right from initial concept through the flawless orchestration and delivery of the campaign.” Parvez Ahmad, director marketing, Asia Pacific and Japan, Financial Services Global Business Unit.
