Media > Excellence in Media

BREAKING THE VICIOUS CIRCLE

PHD, London / HSBC UK / 2022

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Overview

Credits

OVERVIEW

Why is this work relevant for Media?

This campaign used how and where media was planned and bought to literally bring the vicious circle of homelessness to life with circular and repetitive formats in different media across an integrated plan.

Background

HSBC is a globally recognised and trusted brand. Its international image has been built over decades, through campaigns that cemented HSBC’s position as “the world’s local bank”. But the brand’s international image is a double-edged sword.

While HSBC is a well-known global brand, HSBC UK competes with local high street retail banks. Its global scale and international credentials have led many UK consumers to feel it doesn’t really care about the UK community.

The brief was clear: we needed to localise and humanise the brand by bringing its global purpose “opening up a world of opportunity” to life, in a way that makes a big difference in British lives today.

Describe the creative idea / insights

While Britons understand the magnitude of the issue, they underestimate how difficult it is to break the cycle of homelessness. And they don’t realise that financial exclusion plays an exacerbating role in the homelessness cycle.

This led to a breakthrough insight: Becoming homeless is hard enough, but not having a bank account makes it even tougher because the financial-system isn’t designed to let you back in once you’ve fallen out of it.

Not having a home makes it harder to open a bank account. This makes it harder to secure a legitimate job or claim benefits. Which makes it harder to find a home.

It’s a vicious circle.

To break this vicious circle HSBC UK partnered with Shelter and other homelessness charities in the UK to create the first No Fixed Address service. A solution that gives people who are homeless bank accounts, using the charity’s address as proof of

Describe the strategy

We launched a campaign that dramatised the revolving nightmare of homelessness and financial exclusion and called everyone in the UK to help break the vicious circle facing so many Britons today.

Our integrated Vicious Circle campaign raised awareness of the issue and educated our audience on how to open up opportunities for the homeless in their community.

But we couldn’t just use the same tactics of bold placements and statements to land this sensitive topic. We had a limited budget and needed to punch above our weight.

So we took a non-standard approach to all channels, and found ways to demonstrate the vicious circle in media in new, exciting ways.

The aim was to be disruptive and drive talkability, to change perceptions of the brand.

Describe the execution

Everything we did was aimed at dramatising the vicious circle though media placement and positioning.

At the heart of the campaign was a TV special spot – in fact a series of spots in one programme, Gogglebox – we aired 4 10s ads across 2 breaks as teasers, followed by a 60s beautiful film featuring a woman walking in circles being caught by barriers.

This 60s spot was introduced by a special Channel 4 intro frame where the channel broke their normal creative rules to make the “C4 blocks” spin in a circle to match the creative.

This was supported by impactful formats such as the UK’s best known circular OOH site - the London IMAX, curved screens, and continuous digital OOH formats.

We continued this open-ended media approach with print formats such as a central strip which allowed bold, ticker-tape creative to come to life and be more pertinent.

List the results

The campaign is proof that when a big brand prioritises social value it can make a very big difference. And is rewarded with big brand results. NB results do not represent impact of any other marketing activity.

• Social change:

To date, over 3000 NFA bank accounts have been opened.

• Employee pride: Initially trialled in one branch, expanded it to 185 branches.

• Brand reputation: 12% improvement “cares about its customers”.

• Brand affinity: 10% uplift.

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