Your Bank started out as a platform, but has since evolved into a brand purpose for Barclays. Back then, Barclays, like many of the financial institutions in Britain had a reputational problem and nothing they said was having any impact.

To change that we had to shift the brand away from communications that were based around products, services and sales, into actions that were based around customer needs and experiences. In other words moving from ‘saying’ to ‘doing’.

We achieved this by creating Your Bank, an online platform where customers can submit their ideas for how to improve their everyday banking experiences.

Your Bank was launched in September 2013 with the strapline 'Your Bank, We’re listening', and a promise to act on the most popular ideas to genuinely improve everyday banking experiences. To show that Barclays really meant business, the launch was accompanied by a series of six live Facebook Q&As with six of Barclays most senior management figures. For one hour a day, the likes of the CEO of Retail and Business Banking, Ashok Vaswani were available on Facebook to talk to customers about their ideas for improving everyday banking. The live Q&As were a resounding success, over 1.25 million people saw the discussion posts and over 3,000 engaged with them. The Your Bank platform has also been a success story with over 3526 ideas being submitted. Barclays has already brought six of them to life and is working on others.

The Your Bank campaign went out in press, radio on Barclays UK, Barclays Business Facebook pages and in branch.

To amplify the message, Barclays hosted six one-hour real-time discussions via the Barclays UK & Barclays Business Facebook platforms with senior Barclays management, including the CEO of Retail and Business Banking Ashok Vaswani, Steve Cooper Head of Personal and Business Banking and Ruchir Rodrigues Managing Director for Digital Strategy. As well as openly discussing ideas with customers, the social amplification drove people to the Your Bank website to carry on the conversation.

By December 2013 the Your Bank website had, had 3526 ideas submitted. 287,800 video views, 26,913 poll votes, 448,770 interactions and 3,015 registered users. To date Barclays has brought 11 of those ideas to life and is committed to delivering many more.

The Facebook Q&As which took place over Launch Week were equally successful. Overall, over 1.25 million people saw the discussion posts, over 3,000 people Commented, Shared or Liked the posts, engagement increased by over 20% on Barclays UK Facebook platform and overall the Facebook fan-base grew by over 5,200.

Overall Your Bank delivers as a platform for shifting brand perception but it has also become much more, a brand purpose.