The COVID-19 outbreak and the subsequent downturn has made people more concerned about their financial well-being. An increasingly high number of people are now looking for financial services that can insulate them against economic slowdown.

However, trust and credibility are important factors when people choose finance brands and usually go for the most popular ones unless there’s a significant monetary benefit otherwise. Therefore brands must ramp up their brand awareness strategies so that potential customers can become familiar with them, as was done by these three finance brands, who sought to leverage TikTok to drive their brand familiarity.

1. PostFinance

Prominent Swiss bank PostFinance wanted to reach a new audience of young customers.

Their Objectives

PostFinance mainly wanted to drive its brand awareness by reaching out to potential young clients.

Approach & Solution

As their target audience was mostly young, joining hands with TikTok was an obvious decision for PostFinance as it is massively popular among youngsters.

They kick-started their campaign with 2 types of ads- TopView and One Day Max In-Feed Ad, to quickly reach their target audience. They used a simple idea that involved incentivizing young people to open a youth bank account for which they would get 50 Swiss Francs.

While the TopView Ad takes over the entire screen as soon as someone opens the app, the One Day Max In-Feed Ad sits in the For You feed and fetches more organic traffic.

PostFinance’s ad creative was quite engaging and attention-grabbing, which involved clever editing and an attractive soundtrack. It shows a Swiss Franc note waving and then transforming into things that can be possibly purchased with that money.

The Result

The TikTok campaign was a massive success for PostFinance and garnered over 6.3 million impressions across both the ad formats. The TopView Ad fetched an impressive click-through rate of 16.47%, which showed that digital natives engaged with the ad. Also, the engagement rate was a whopping 17.37% as the community liked and commented on the creative in multitudes.

2. max

Israeli credit card company max was about to launch its new mobile payment feature for which it wanted to gain some traction before the launch.

Their Objectives

As new technologies tend to be quickly adopted by a younger generation before others pick it up, max wanted to capitalize on those early adopters and drive their brand awareness in the process.

Approach & Solution

As TikTok hosts a large number of young users, max decided to team up with the platform to reach out to their target audience more effectively.

max collaborated with two of Israel’s leading agencies, McCann and UM Digital to launch Israel’s first TopView campaign. They used a 20-second video as the creative that showed users a new way to make payments in a simple way.

Backed by TikTok’s 100% sound-on experience, max made the most of native editing and a catchy soundtrack to boost engagement. Also, the ad featured an “Install now” call to action at the bottom, which directed users to the App Store or Google Play, where they could download the app and enjoy its payment features.

The Result

The TopView ad was quite successful for max and fetched a massive four million impressions during the 24 hours when the campaign was live. Also, it garnered about one million clicks and 30,000 likes, which clearly showed the ad’s popularity among the users.

3. AIB

One of Ireland’s leading banks, AIB, was about to launch its third AIB Future Sparks Festival in March 2020 when the COVID-19 outbreak struck and the event had to be moved online.

Their Objectives

AIB’s primary objective was to promote its AIB Future Spark series and drive brand awareness among students and teachers towards their online educational series.

Also, it sought to reach new students en masse and drive awareness around its mobile app, which would help customers open their personal current account easily, quickly, and securely.

Approach & Solution

As the event mostly targeted students, joining hands with TikTok, which enjoys great popularity among the young folks, was a wise decision for AIB.

The bank collaborated with Core, one of Ireland’s major marketing communication companies, to design two campaigns to achieve both its marketing goals.

For the AIB Future Spark series, multiple One Day Max In-Feed Ads were served across three weeks to gain maximum reach with students in Ireland. These ads directed users to a live and long-form video on YouTube, which presented the festival series.

AIB also launched two TopView ads to draw interest from its target audience for the promotion of its fast and easy mobile current account application service. The two ads took the form of full screen and were seen by the users upon opening the app. They featured a young woman facing a very relatable problem- the need for a bank account urgently when starting a job and how easy and quick the process to open an account at AIB can be.

Also, a “Learn more” call to action featured at the bottom of the ads, which directed users to AIB’s landing page, where they could find the instructions on how to open a bank account on their smartphones.

The Result

The One Day Max In-Feed Ad campaign was quite successful for AIB and garnered a massive 2.13 million impressions during the three days when it was shown. This was 87% higher than their target. The video also fetched over 2 million views, with 40,000 clicks and 94,000 engagements.

The account opening campaign delivered even more impressive results and generated 3.3 million views on the video with 3.5 million impressions. Also, it drove 647,000 clicks at a click-through rate of 18.62%. The engagement was a whopping 688,000 at a highly impressive engagement rate of about 20%.

Wrapping Up

While content plays a definite role in the success of any marketing campaign, getting the ad format right can go a long way in ensuring optimal engagement. Going for TopView Ad usually pays off as the user gets to see it over their entire screen upon opening the app. However, if you’re running multiple campaigns, it would be worthwhile to experiment with different ad formats.