The Campaign

Branded content is still in its infancy in Australia. Many brands struggle to separate traditional advertising from content. Our position is that content is something that an audience seeks out rather than has forced upon them. It should start from a utility point of view – emotional, informative, entertaining, or occasionally, all three. There are no restrictions or regulations imposed by the TV networks or governing bodies that are relevant to the banking sector associating itself with social causes, or in our case, sanctioning equal rights for women.

Results

In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion on social media around gender equality. One Australian bank wanted to take it a step further. Our challenge was to get the nation talking not just about the issue, but about the genuine steps the ANZ bank were taking to address it. Mindful of this, we decided a piece of branded content would give us our best shot at connecting with an audience. We needed to create a content piece that would ‘move’ Australians; a piece that would provoke them to share it with their friends. It started with a simple insight: girls’ brains develop faster than boys, yet women end up falling behind, financially and professionally. We then signed up Oscar-winning director Jane Campion, the only female director to ever win the Cannes Palm D’or, to execute an online film examining this troubling bias. The film brought into focus the reality of the gender divide. One by one, young girls would read out statistics of inequity, knowing that one day, they too would have to face these inequalities. To accompany the content piece, Jane also shot a series of 15-second commercials outlining the initiatives the bank was implementing. For the media launch, we enlisted another female trailblazer – Australia’s first-ever female prime minister, Julia Gillard. At the launch, the ANZ initiatives were announced, including: extra superannuation payments to their female employees plus additional payments to those on unpaid maternity leave. It was at this launch that we first shared our online film. That same day, we shared it on Facebook and YouTube. In just 10 days, the campaign has already reached a global audience of 112 million, generating nearly $10m in coverage for ANZ. Australia’s three major political parties have now called for a senate inquiry into women’s super.

Branded content is still in its infancy in Australia. Many brands struggle to separate traditional advertising from content. Our position is that content is something that an audience seeks out rather than has forced upon them. It should start from a utility point of view – emotional, informative, entertaining, or occasionally, all three. There are no restrictions or regulations imposed by the TV networks or governing bodies that are relevant to the banking sector associating itself with social causes, or in our case, sanctioning equal rights for women.

Just ten days after launching, the video has been viewed over 600,000 times across YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. A response rate of one view every 1.5 seconds. With nearly $10m in PR coverage reaching a global audience of 112m and over 8,000 #equalfuture social posts, the commentary has been incredibly positive (70%+ positive social sentiment). Significantly, the campaign has stimulated a national conversation with many leading organisations publically supporting ANZ’s push for an #equalfuture. In fact, the Australia’s major political parties are calling for a parliamentary inquiry into inequality in women’s superannuation, applauding ANZ’s move to level the playing field.

The ANZ bank wanted to build affinity with its audience, by affecting real change on women’s equality. Our challenge: how could a financial institution sincerely engage with its audience over such a sensitive issue? A traditional advertising approach would not connect with our understandably cynical audience. Sympathetic to this, we created a branded content piece that presented the state of women’s equality in Australia, in a provocative and confronting way. Jane Campion is a pioneer for women in film. She is the only female director to ever win the Cannes Palm D’or, and one of only two female directors to win the academy award for directing. By getting Jane to shoot an online film for ANZ’s Equal Future initiative, the integrity of the message was kept to a premium, far higher that that of a traditional TVC. The medium itself also made our message more credible and sharable.