Digital and social media spots that show bank employees cleaning up waterfronts have given new life to RBC’s long-running Blue Water Project.
Launched in 2007, the project is part of a 10-year, $50 million commitment to clean up fresh water in the countries where the bank has operations. This year, the project is giving out $2.17 million in grants in Canada.
Historically, the bank used a mass campaign telling its freshwater protection story in an abstract way, says Matt McGlynn, director of brand marketing at RBC. But, “it’s a difficult cause to understand especially when you’re a water-rich country,” which is the case for Canada and several other countries in which RBC operates.
This year, “we really shifted our approach in a meaningful way. We put the employee at the centre of the story,” says McGlynn.
The campaign launched with a consumer engagement component – the BBDO Toronto-developed Stream to Save – a mobile-first website that played the sounds of Canadian bodies of water. “If you were in Toronto you received (the sound of) fresh bodies of water in the Toronto area,” McGlynn says. For each minute people listened, a minute of RBC employee time was donated for the makeovers in Canada.
In early June, more than 25,000 RBC employees in 25 countries spent a day involved in 850 makeovers to protect local waterfronts including everything from tree planting to shoreline cleanups.
PR toolkits and experiential toolkits were prepared to ensure consistent branding across each city’s event, and employees involved in the makeovers wore Team RBC branded T-shirts and gloves.
The makeovers in cities across Canada were filmed and separate YouTube videos described each makeover. In Toronto, for example, employees planted about 4,000 wildflowers to absorb storm water and reduce flooding on Lake Ontario, while in Montreal employees cleaned up shorelines to prevent pollution in the St. Lawrence River.
“Fresh water is precious. Of all the water on Earth, only 1% is available for our use,” each video notes.
McGlynn says the media buy was highly-targeted with geo-targeting used heavily online.
“If you looked in B.C. you would never be served up anything but the Vancouver makeover.” The campaign was conducted by Mosaic, AMG Digital and M2.
“It was really making it about the impact we make at the local level,” he says, noting the makeovers started three years ago, but were not previously talked about. “Historically, it was a little bit more of a generic messaging which I think was difficult to comprehend.”
The videos garnered more than 3.4 million impressions on YouTube and 2.3 million views on Facebook.
“We feel like strategically we really ended up in the right place,” he says of the digital and social approach.
“For a bank especially that is risk averse, this is transformational for us to take a risk and stop doing some of the stuff that wasn’t really effective.”
