HSBC connected to audiences on an emotional level, producing a meaningful and timeless campaign to promote their partnership with British Cycling – all hinging off our much-loved ‘The Secret Life of…’ format.
The Secret Life of New Cyclists and HSBC
The Big Idea
Similarly to most banks, HSBC struggles with associations of being a cold and corporate brand. In 2017, HSBC UK became the lead partner of British Cycling with an ambition to inspire families from across the UK to rediscover the joys of cycling, not only increasing the health of the UK but hopefully trying to shift the brand health of HSBC too. Cycling is something tangible, relatable and most of all, hopefully accessible to most audiences. How, though, to inject the campaign with warmth?
Enter our ‘Secret Life of… (4, 5, 6 Year Olds)’ series. A wildly popular programme, viewers really connect to the series since, after all, we were all young once. And in the same way, we all learnt to ride a bike when younger…
Channel 4 and Mindshare worked together to create the perfect solution. Learning how to ride a bike is a rite of passage for many, so it seemed like the perfect fit for our ‘Secret Life’ kids – we would capture them learning how to ride a bike for the first time! Thus, The Secret Life of New Cyclists was born.
No scripts and no direction – that was the beauty of this genuinely engaging and emotionally inspiring content; a far cry from the often corporate messaging that consumers usually see from banks. To see and hear from the kids about how it makes them feel to be free on 2 wheels (okay, 4 including stabilisers!) would hopefully stir emotions and bring back memories of how fun cycling can be. We wanted this to be more than an ad, it was a genuine initiative to engage the UK and get them back on their bikes – and to that end, one of the key objectives to measure the effectiveness of this campaign was to ensure that the view-through rates were genuine and inherited from the parent programme.
We want our partnership with British Cycling to help shape a greener, fitter, healthier Britain. Although there are a number of rational benefits to riding a bike, the most compelling reason we found to engage a lapsed rider, was to remind them of the reason they began to ride in the first place. Partnering with Channel 4 and 'The Secret Life Of’ was a great way of doing that. Looking at our awareness and research results, it seems our audience agrees. - Luke Harper. Head of British Cycling Partnership. HSBC
Making it Happen
Working with the producers of the show, RDF Television, the content was shot in the same way as the programme itself – the same location, the same teachers and the same behavioural psychologist giving commentary. This provided the backbone for a cohesive and most importantly, authentic piece of content that stayed true to the original ‘Secret Life of…’ magic. The campaign launched in another of Channel 4’s successful kid-focussed formats, ‘Gogglesprogs’, which we hoped would give it rich inheritance. The 60” premiere creative was preceded by a C4 and HSBC branded introduction - helping land the genuine partnership between the two. Extended content was also available to view via an interactive, geo-targeted, pre-roll on ALL4 which told viewers where their closest riding events were based on their IP address.
A total of 55%
of infrequent cyclists claimed to be more likely to get back on their bikes after seeing the content
2017’s overall campaign results saw a +26.1%pt
increase in Trust on HSBC’s brand tracker
The Results
This wasn’t just another advertising campaign from a bank, it had heart and created genuine connections with viewers, evidenced through the skyrocketed view-through rates.
We commissioned two individual pieces of research that really highlighted the effectiveness of the campaign.
Research on the content, conducted by a ‘Core4’ panel, showed that main message takeout was extremely positive:
• 50% of infrequent cyclists claimed to be more likely to get back on their bikes after seeing the content
• The content conveyed that ‘HSBC cares about the community, sponsors British Cycling, and cares about people’s health and wellbeing’
• 88% of respondents agreed that ‘Cycling is fun, and it’s for everyone!’
The campaign reached 18.4m on TV, 1.5m on VoD and a 17.9m via social media. All benchmarks for view through rates were exceeded with a 92% completion rate on All4 (vs. the typical 82% benchmark) and users engaged with the extended content for 122 seconds against an average benchmark of 75secs.
As this was a campaign based on emotions, we also conducted research around the feeling of the campaign. Conducted by a ‘Core4’ panel showed that main message takeout was extremely positive: 50% of infrequent cyclists claimed to be more likely to get back on their bikes after seeing the content, and the content conveyed that ‘HSBC cares about the community, sponsors British Cycling, and cares about people’s health and wellbeing’.
In addition to this, 2017’s overall campaign results saw the following metric shift on HSBC’s brand tracker:
• +22.1%pt increase in Pride (Aware = +12.9% vs. Unaware = -9.3%),
• +26.1%pt increase in Trust (Aware = +24.5% vs. Unaware = -1.6%)
(Source: YouGov).
Tying the partnership campaign into ‘Secret Life’ was a perfect fit, and worked wonders for HSBC.
