Bank of America challenged us to increase awareness of their mobile banking app (and overall brand) for a broad audience, by aligning our concept with a cultural event that could drive massive reach across platforms from TV to social and everything in between. In short: they wanted to create a whole lot of buzz.
Recently, we introduced a mobile banking app campaign featuring a fresh, new "spokesperson" of sorts: a talking, app-loving llama. The llama campaign and corresponding tagline "LLearn to LLove Your App" added an unexpected dose of humor to Bank of America's formerly stuffy image—and seemed like a perfect fit for this new challenge.
So, was there a cultural event that could spark cross-device conversations that both consumers and our llama would love? You bet.
Enter America's favorite pastime: Major League Baseball.
Not only do llamas have a soft spot for baseball (well, we assume they do), the sport is certifiably beloved by millions of Americans, and its high volume of social chatter made it ripe for a co-screening masterpiece. We were primed for a home run.
We could've invented a conversation to tout our app, but instead we let the llama do it for us—by placing him at the center of one of the most talked about (and least polarizing) moments in professional baseball: the MLB All-Star Game (ASG).
To set the stage, we paired Orioles player Adam Jones and influencer/comedian George Janko alongside the llama on the road to ASG, where the trio shared photos and videos of their journey, and acclaimed the app whenever possible. On our social channels, we created buzz and excitement leading up to the ASG with a custom Snapchat lens and immersive formats like Facebook Canvas ads, all featuring our baseball-loving llama and his favorite mobile banking app.
On game day, we encouraged conversation with Twitter First View, a Promoted Trend (#LLOVETHEGAME), a llama emoji donning a baseball cap, and humorous conversational video ads featuring the llama at a ballpark discussing his two true loves: baseball and the Bank of America mobile banking app.
We responded to the action in real time using the llama's voice and #LLOVETHEGAME, and live tweeted the unpredictable All Star Game moments all weekend-long. Our MLB partners retweeted our content, adding reach and reinforcing the campaign's credibility—and simultaneously kicking off our MLB Twitter Amplify program for the remainder of the MLB season.
Throughout the week leading up to and during the All Star Game, we received 4,000 mentions of our #LLOVETHEGAME hashtag and over 66 million impressions of the trend. 1 in 5 users saw our First View video, culminating in more than 6,000 unique engagers (21% above the Twitter First View Platform Benchmark), which drove a 7.4 point lift in brand favorability. On Snapchat, our lens had 46 million views with the average user spending 18.69 seconds with the lens. Our influencer content featuring Adam Jones and George Janko received over 1 million engagements; a result of amplification from the influencers and various MLB teams.
