ASB Bank developed world first technology that allows friends to txt cash between mobiles. It was given the brand name ‘Pago’. ASB stipulated that they didn’t want to use conventional advertising to promote the product and tasked the agency to find entirely new ways to promote this service to consumers, early adopters, opinion formers, and ‘Mavens’.

The results:33% awareness objective in the first 3 months.Two months from launch 18 - 24 year old target audience knowledge of the service reached 40%. Within this group 89% accurately recalled the Pago brand.1200 subscriptions in the first week of launch - delivering a result 3 x higher than the original goal of 400.The stage one registration goal is 5000 (still in progress). Pago content was delivered to 3821 mobile phone handsets via bluetooth/infrared. - 76.4% of the subscription goal.

A portrait of Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Everest and New Zealand’s most famous living son, sits on every New Zealand $5 note.When ASB bank launched ‘Pago’, a world first technology that allows you to txt cash between mobile phones, we got permission from both Sir Edmund Hillary and the reserve bank to use the national currency as an advertising medium.We put stickers of his pixellated image directly over the top of his portrait on NZ$5 notes which were introduced into circulation.

When peeled off, the reverse side of the sticker directed people to the Pago website to activate their own digital wallet.