There are many possible responses when your highly conservative organisation is lambasted in the media for unethical behaviour and your global workforce is shocked and ashamed. The bravest approach is to take the issue head-on and say: ‘let’s talk about it’.

We created the NOW Share app specifically to spark conversations about ‘values’ at home and at work; to encourage staff to share their thoughts and feelings about what happened.

The creative idea was to invite all employees, using a bespoke video crowd-sourcing tool which we created in 8 weeks, to film, from sunrise to sunset, the moments, people and places which motivate them to be at their best.

The people who keep HSBC running work hard and try to make good decisions. This is their story, in their own words, and their thoughts about the scandal which threatened to engulf a culture of which they are justifiably proud.

Since the creation and sharing of UGC was central to the campaign, we researched the market to identify a scalable and customisable solution that could be adapted for a heavily regulated organisation.

We found a UK start-up who were in the early stages of developing a video crowd-sourcing tool and worked with them to create a bespoke version for HSBC.

We wanted a critical mass of employees across the world to be able to upload video – safely and legally – from personal devices and through the firewalls of HSBC. We managed to get this exciting digital innovation from concept to implementation in just 8 weeks - an unprecedented achievement.

The app is in 6 different languages and is fully accessible in line with the Disability Discrimination Act. To comply with strict regulatory guidelines it also enables contributors to digitally sign legal release forms.

We measured the success in three ways:

1. Employee response to the launch of the app (qualitative feedback and activation metrics)

2. Participation of employees to the campaign (quantity and quality of video clips uploaded)

3. Audience response to the final output (viewing figures for film and qualitative feedback)

Evaluation highlights:

* 3561 app downloads in first 6 months; over 4421 clips uploaded from employees in 23 countries

* In a survey, 72% of early adopters said NOW Share app would strengthen communication and relationships across the business12,117 unique views of the final film in the first 30 minutes, 62,523 in the first week plus re-use in more than 50 internal and external events

* This is a 378% increase in viewing figures for the film against the 2016 average of HSBC NOW programmes/stories.

* Feedback came from a variety of roles and levels - 93% positive, 7% neutral