It’s no mean feat to launch two campaigns for two separate banks, advertising the same product and delivering predominantly the same message.
Yet, Lloyds Banking Group has released an ambitious, two-fold advertising campaign targeting small British businesses; one from its flagship Lloyds Bank, and the other from the Bank of Scotland.
Small businesses matter
The campaign’s primary objective is to advertise Lloyds’ new business current account, aimed squarely at small business owners, and is intended to promote the new product to existing customers, as well as raise awareness among non-customers.
To achieve this, Lloyds launched two branches of the same campaign to target customers from both its banks, advertising the product over two brands in one hit. In recognising the importance of digital, this is the first time Lloyds has led a so-called ‘big’ campaign with video on demand (VOD).
And this, as Lloyds Banking Group’s head of marketing Richard Carpenter explains, was one of the team’s main challenges: “Quite often B2B can be a little further behind the work of its B2C counterparts and I think this is a great example of a digitally-led campaign, incorporating multiple creative aspects and programmatic buying.”
Both banks’ ad videos embrace the campaign’s theme of supporting British SMEs. The Bank of Scotland video aims to highlight the many different roles small business owners have to play, demonstrating the high-stress, micromanaging nature of their position.
The Lloyds Bank campaign consists of three videos, each featuring a different small business owner (a florist, electrician and courier) initially cast in the shadow of a celebrity, before being treated to a makeover and photoshoot, therefore gaining the recognition Lloyds believes they deserve.
Carpenter says: “We should really be celebrating what these businesses deliver, because they often don’t get much of the limelight. Big businesses and celebrities demand an awful lot of our attention.
“Individually, you probably wouldn’t notice the people featured in the videos, but add them all up and they’re enormous.”
Proud to be a British business
The campaign, which runs until March 2016, will span digital, radio and press advertising, with total media spend in the region of £3 million.
In addition to the digital VODs and standard press advertising, Lloyds also partnered with radio station LBC. The two-week partnership allowed the banking group to sponsor a number of the station’s business programmes, with many focusing on small business discussions. This activity underpins the core message of supporting British SMEs that Lloyds is keen to promote.
“We are a British bank and we are proud of that British focus and heritage,” says Carpenter. “Supporting British business is a common theme for Lloyds, and the volume of small businesses in this country and what they contribute to the economy was the real driver behind this campaign.”
Although in its early stages, Lloyds is already collecting some promising results, especially in terms of online engagement. Within the first few days there were over 20 million digital impressions, with the main destination/landing page for the campaign enjoying a month’s worth of activity over a five-day period. The banking group hopes to generate around 230 million impressions for the first phase of the campaign and will also be measuring results based on non-customer consideration and existing customer applications.
Constant campaign optimisation
The bank is looking to constantly vary and optimise the campaign creative, based on social feedback and programmatic buying. For example, the three SME videos for Lloyds Bank will be promoted according to the level of response they receive.
There will also be a second tranche of media buying in the new year, depending to the results the campaign receives from its first few months.
“It’s all about constant optimisation,” explains Carpenter, “even though it’s been a huge push to get it out of the door, much of the work starts now.”
