Walk Off The Earth helps bring back a six-year-old campaign
ING Direct knows that we’re living in a material world, and is resurrecting a former hit – make that hits – to encourage Canadians to save for it.
The financial services company has dusted off its YouTube-based “Canadian Superstar Saver Search” marketing program, dormant since it first appeared in 2007, for a six-week campaign.
The 2007 campaign was conceived to build brand awareness. Research on this first iteration showed increased scores on metrics like brand favourability and consideration intent, as well as increasing consumer perception that ING is an innovative bank, is constantly trying to do things better, and is straightforward.
“Life took over and we never stopped to breathe and actually resurrect it,” said Mark Nicholson, ING’s head of digital, creative and communications, of the program’s long layoff. With Canadians among the world’s most devout YouTube users, ING decided it was an appropriate time to bring it back, he said.
The bilingual campaign invites Canadians to upload a video demonstrating their innovative saving techniques to YouTube for the opportunity to win $10,000. Prize money will be deposited into an ING Direct investment savings account.
The latest iteration of the “Canadian Superstar Saver Search” includes a new partnership with the Juno-nominated indie band Walk Off the Earth, who have recorded a version of the 1980s Madonna hit “Material Girl” to launch the campaign.
“We thought they were a good fit with our brand in terms of the way they look at the music industry,” said Nicholson. “We liken it very much to how ING looks at the banking industry in trying to go against the grain.”
The official video is housed on Walk Off the Earth’s YouTube channel (where it had received more than 608,000 views as of Wednesday). ING is the presenter of the video, and also has some subtle product placement with one of the band members wearing a branded scarf. The end of the video features a call-to-action to enter the contest.
The band is also featured in a 30-second video promoting the contest on ING’s YouTube page. ING is also seeding the page with a series of humorous videos (two are live at the moment, with another two appearing next week) created by Toronto agency Dashboard that show some of the lengths people go to save money.
One video shows a man who saves on gym fees by tying hot dogs to himself and allowing himself to be chased by dogs through the park, while another features a woman who saves on carpets by taping together a group of sample squares.
Initiative handled media for the campaign, including premium ad placement on the YouTube homepage.
The contest’s upload period concludes May 30 with user voting determining the top 20 (10 English and 10 French) finalists. More than 200 videos were submitted in the initial iteration of the “Canadian Superstar Saver Search,” with the top 20 videos garnering an estimated 6,000 hours of viewing time. Nicholson said that the company is hoping to increase the number of submissions to around 300 this time around.
