Eurobest

The 99% Broadcast

SYDBANK, Aabenraa / SYDBANK / 2020

Awards:

1 Shortlisted Eurobest
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Overview

Entries

Credits

OVERVIEW

Background

Sydbank is the 4th largest bank in Denmark. It has two main differentiators in relation to the other major Danish banks.

Firstly, Sydbank’s core brand narrative is centered around being an empathetic, down-to-earth and caring bank with a strong focus on local communities. This is in contrast to the three biggest banks and main competitors, who have a national narrative with focuses on size, strength and a C-suite image.

Secondly, while other banks are rapidly decommissioning local branches, Sydbank has focused on a local, physical presence.

These two factors are the pivotal points underlying the campaign/sponsorship narrative.

Furthermore, Sydbank had traditionally focused almost their entire marketing budget on tactical, product-focused sales activation. However, research from the IPA Databank shows that the financial sector especially needs to focus on brand building with a split of 80% brand to 20% sales activation. Therefore, we needed to build this shift into the sponsorship.

Execution

All football players dream of scoring the perfect goal while everyone is watching. The sad fact is, that only the top 1% gets on TV. So, what about all the players fighting just as hard to bring home victory for their local clubs? Don’t they deserve an audience too? As a new sponsor of the Danish League Cup, Sydbank didn’t want to simply celebrate the 1% who are already on TV. They wanted to turn this tradition upside down and broadcast the 99%, who aren’t.

Sydbank presents: The 99% Broadcast

But how do you record, edit and broadcast hundreds of matches across the country - without an army of cameramen and millions of Euros? You mix in a 180-degree camera with artificial intelligence and give it to all the local football clubs. The technology would capture the entire pitch and track all the action, automatically recording and editing all 450 local matches - without the help of a single cameraman.

Every match throughout the season was hyper-targeted to the local areas of the teams - finally giving the players the audience they deserve. The possibilities of this technology were well received by the local clubs and quickly picked up by the local news - all around the country.

With this initiative, Sydbank turned the league cup upside down and created a platform for celebrating the 99% - now - and for years to come. But we didn’t stop there. We asked fans of the league cup to vote for the best local goal of the season. And of course, the goal of a hero deserves a heroic tribute. That’s why we invited the winner to the League Cup finals where a statue of himself was revealed - at the biggest stadium in Denmark - and on national TV.

The effects are clear. After the first year of the sponsorship, 2.4 million Danes (out of a population of 5.5 million) have spent time with the hypertargeted content. With more than 4,8 million views, more than 2000 PR mentions and an engagement rate 14x greater than national benchmarks, the Danes welcomed the sponsorship with open arms.

Sydbank’s image has risen significantly and Sydbank is now the one amongst the major banks that most Danes says takes the biggest social responsibility. A survey from the Danish National Football Association shows that 44% of all respondents believe that Sydbank “has done something extra for Danish football in the past year”, clearly overtaking previous leaders by a large margin.

The preference for Sydbank has increased by 125% fueled by an increasing ambassadorship from existing clients.

The ROI has surpassed all expectation with a ratio of 49:1. The sponsorship has generated a significant increase in new customers with a total of 15 % from 2018 to 2019. During the same period the churn rate has decreased with 14 %. This has brought Sydbank’s market share back on track. Overall, the sponsorship has generated a profit of 31 million euros.

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