TD Bank is a regional, challenger brand in the Eastern US. With large national and international competitors outspending us in media by up to 10 times and trust in banks on the decline over the past 2 years, we needed a campaign to drive outsized awareness and brand preference.
To make these goals even more difficult, the banking category was moving increasingly digital during Covid. Whereas in-person experiences and service were previously a differentiator for TD Bank, financial products and services were becoming ever more virtual and commoditized.
Since TD Bank’s point of difference is being “unexpectedly human” and community-focused, leveraging this positioning in our market was more challenging than ever. To protect their business, TD Bank had to maintain or grow our brand in key markets, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Miami, and within key customer segments of mass consumers and small business.
Our strategic approach came out of the insight that ‘Brand Purpose’ was becoming an increasingly critical criteria in driving customer preference. So we adapted our previous years ‘TD Thanks You’ campaign to help deliver on TD Bank’s purpose to “help communities move forward” by recognizing not only customers, but also colleagues and community partners for their positivity, ingenuity and selflessness within their communities.
To begin, we reached out to our network of employees to identify customers, community partners and colleagues doing good in their local communities.
Out of hundreds of individuals and businesses nominated by our staff, we identified sixteen (16) stories of people making a BIG impact in their local communities across TD Bank’s East Coast footprint. We categorized these stories into two types of executions:
For each nominee, we came up with creative ways to thank them that were personal and meaningful. We orchestrated and filmed surprise and delight experiences tailored for each of the selected recipients and thanked them through community recognition and support from the bank.
These experiences were turned into a series of ‘TD Thanks You’ video docu-shorts shared across social channels. The in-depth profiles of the local recipients were intimate and heart-felt, reflecting TD Bank’s “unexpectedly human” character and including representation from TD Bank staff themselves.
Each story was captured by a different and local film director. And we made sure to source gifts from local businesses whenever we could. What’s more, each experience had to follow strict Covid protocols so everyone remained safe and compliant with local Covid guidelines that differed by state, county and city.
We shot these stories knowing we would have to create multiple assets to be deployed using different media tactics across GDN, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Linkedin, as well as TD Bank’s owned channels.
In the context of a national social media storm of negativity (a divisive election and the Covid pandemic) these stories provided a much needed dose of optimism and positivity. And this positive sentiment was attributed back to TD Bank.
Best of all, the stories demonstrated TD Bank’s brand purpose in a clear, actionable way.
The campaign exceeded its goals. Through compelling TD Thank You content, the bank grew top of mind awareness and significantly impacted consideration in key markets.
As for the content itself, our videos broke through with all 4 spots achieving high recognition scores and higher than benchmark video completion rates.
Facebook non-skippable inventory yielded a VCR of 84.9%, almost 2x's Facebook's benchmark.
Overall, the campaign secured 70.4MM earned media impressions through PR efforts across multiple media channels (TV, Radio, Print) and in multiple markets
