The Campaign

Banks believe money makes you happy and Millennials know a rich life makes you happy so we created THE UNSTOPPABLE SQUAD - a group of relatable young Aussies with the ambition to explore, discover and create their own futures. We gave them a Westpac account with $18,000 and captured their unguided and uncensored lives by asking them to answer a brief; show us what it means to live unstoppable in 2016. Armed with a video camera they began living unstoppable. We didn’t want a receipt; we wanted to see their dreams come alive. From different backgrounds, Stefan, a film director, Vanessa, a hip-hop teacher and Hannah, a business owner, all delivered. We buddied them up with our creative, content strategist and social planners and created rich stories across Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat & Tumblr that competed in a newsfeed dominated by friends travel adventures and the latest Kim and Kanye news.

Creative Execution

An explosive trailer launched the series teasing glimpses of what it means to live unstoppable. We promoted one story at a time and complimented each with assets that weaved tales of adventure, aspiration and achievement across the platform best suited. For example, Instagram provided inspiration allowing Stefan’s trip to Ghana to reach a travel hungry audience through #travel #inspo, Snapchat gave behind the scenes, raw realism to his gritty adventure and the full length story on Facebook was distributed around inspirational travel blogs achieving scale and reach. We launched new stories every two weeks and optimized spend to the best performing formats. The Westpac Tumblr hosted additional content and shared animated gifs sparking interest towards the full stories. Stefan/Hannah/Vanessa shared posts through their personal Instagram accounts using #UnstoppableSquad and using emoji, slang and the Stories feature, we crafted intimate access to The Unstoppable Squad, showcasing their passion for living unstoppable.

The Unstoppable Squad’s shenanigans reached over 3.3m young Aussies. Over 1.7m young Aussies watched the squad in action and their stories were so relatable, inspiring and honest that there were over 1 million social engagements. The videos incredibly received between 14 – 18% engagement rates, FOUR TIMES Westpac usually sees. A quote on Vanessa’s video read, “Your such an inspirational soul ‘Ness!” Average view times were 65% while Snapchat received amazing 45% open rates. 59% of interactions on Tumblr were organic engagements generated through likes and reblogs of our goofy gifs and videos. The interaction was an astonishing 554% higher than the benchmark for financial brands on Tumblr. We received 42,384 clicks to Tumblr to discover more and 26,500 clicks to Westpac’s website to find out more about everyday banking products. The Unstoppable Squad captured the feeling of what it means to be a young today, “…Live life” wrote Siddharth Kothari.

Young people are busy working, partying; a million things are more interesting than hearing from a bank. No good story at a bar ever started with “I’m saving up for…” so we decided to capture a collective culture of young Aussies embracing the freedom their youth offers. Rather than an advertisement telling them about product benefits, we talked in their language through the most authentic means possible. THE STRATEGY; show them, them, living unstoppable. Show everyday Aussies living unstoppable and inspire others to have the confidence to follow their dreams. We ruthlessly crafted thumb-stopping moments as the benchmark for all activity and shared only inspiring stories that delivered the true meaning of living unstoppable. We met browsing habits across platforms and competed with whatever else they’d logged on to social to do. We grabbed their attention and put Westpac on the consideration list for young Aussies.