Channel 4

Continuing the PayPal Story with Channel 4 & Havas

PayPal and Channel 4 have created a partnership that truly stands out creatively and invokes brilliant, unexpected conversations around diversity.

The Big Idea

Paypal has been at the forefront of the online and mobile payment industry from the beginning: they were the innovators and the leaders. Fast forward to 2018 and competition around who to use at online checkout has never been fiercer - from Apple Pay to new players like Monzo. PayPal had a huge task to remain relevant.

This is where we stepped in. How could we drive awareness and understanding of all the functionalities PayPal offers in an entertaining way?

We needed to drive comprehension around the following functionalities:

1. Money Pool

2. Choice

3. Credit

4. Buyer Protection

5. Ubiquity

6. Donate

Making it Happen

We saw that the connection our audience have with their favourite Channel 4 programmes offered us powerful new narratives for PayPal. Here at Channel 4 HQ, we know contextual advertising drives results - our independent research (backed up by neuroscientists at Durham University) proved that viewers are twice as likely to remember an ad when viewed contextually!

We used this key insight to drive our campaign – together with Bandstand and Havas, we worked closely with our commissioning and scheduling teams to pick a carefully curated contextual schedule, allowing us to match the PayPal functionality to what our viewers had just been watching.

Like any good Channel 4 Drama we needed a compelling cast. We knew from last year’s massively successful campaign that representing Britain in an inclusive and diverse way drove brand warmth and made for a really memorable campaign. Enter Lauren, Patrick and Amber: three ‘flatmates’ who were able to perfectly demonstrate the six USPs of PayPal in a fun and entertaining way.

Using our award winning programmes, we set about creating six different pieces of copy to show the different functionalities - from using PayPal credit to quickly solve GBBO baking disasters, leveraging Stand up to Cancer to explain the donate functionality, to using Money Pool to get your mate the best wedding present ever while watching Don’t Tell the Bride.

Our partnership once again busted the myths around just what you can do through PayPal.

63% of viewers had an improved opinion of PayPal after seeing their ad
Brand warmth towards PayPal improved from 67% to a massive 81%

The Results

Our Channel 4/PayPal partnership is one of our biggest and most successful partnerships. Our objective this year was to drive comprehension and awareness, and the results are compelling:

Throughout the campaign, Paypal’s NPS score grew by an average of +38% - higher than we saw for any competitor including disruptor brands like Apple Pay and Monzo!

63% of viewers had an improved opinion of PayPal after seeing their ad

Brand warmth towards PayPal improved from 67% to a massive 81%

Awareness of all six functionalities grew… some by as much as 16%

60% of viewers were more likely to consider using PayPal, smashing our norm of 47%!