The Campaign

University is a time when you're surrounded by a world of opportunities that can shape your future. But, rather than simply tell students to take every opportunity that comes their way, we showed them what could happen if they did. Presenting, 'Fortune Favours the Brave'. One student’s brave move to seize an opportunity results in a world-class music video and all that comes with it.

Creative Execution

‘Fortune Favours the Brave’ - a campaign launched entirely on social media, rewarding an unexpected student, with a life changing experience. The story kicked off with a tease on world-famous choreographer Parris Goebel’s social channels. 24 hours later, ANZ launched an unscripted hero video that went behind the scenes from the moment student, Sam V, answered the ad, to his surprise when he discovers who he will actually be making a music video with. Sam premiered his official music video on his social channels and made his single available on all streaming platforms. Things got big, fast. Appearing across all the major media outlets, Sam was slingshotted into celebrity status, proving that fortune really does favour the brave. This all happened in real-time on social media watched by hundreds of thousands of other young students, all made possible by ANZ bank.

Reach: With 4 episodes of campaign video content layered with supporting social posts across both ANZ’s and Parris Goebel’s social media channels, the campaign had a combined reach of 2.6 million. Engagement: In a country of only 4 million, the campaign had over 3.6 million impressions and 25,195 reactions, comments and shares across all social content. Impact: It turns out, students couldn’t get enough of Parris and Sam. Thanks to the huge amount of shares on social media, within just a week of launch Spotify announced ‘I Just Wanna Love U’ as one of its most played and shared viral tracks. ANZ regained a dramatic market lead as the number one bank for students, all with a catchy tune that you can’t help but love. Ultimately, ANZ bank was able to reach a fickle youth market by creating a multi-platform, content-driven social media campaign, that students wanted to engage with.

To attract first-year university students to ANZ bank, Fortune Favours the Brave had a collaboration between the bank, world-famous choreographer Parris Goebel and a young student musician at its heart. Music was the social currency of the entire campaign. The campaign was launched and lived entirely on social media and digital music platforms, a place where our target audience’s eyeballs would naturally be. As hundreds of thousands of music-loving students watched this inspiring young musician’s career skyrocket in real-time on social media (thanks to ANZ), the campaign created dramatic uptake in the bank’s student banking product and brand preference.

Our research revealed this audience filled their social feeds with influencers and celebrities they admired. We needed the credibility of someone students respected, a young influencer who had earned their attention. Enter Parris Goebel, a 22-year-old up and coming NZ choreographer making it on the world stage. Most recently choreographing Justin Bieber’s ‘Purpose’ music videos, clocking up a whopping 1 billion views on the ‘Sorry’ video alone. We also found that students rarely visit a physical bank anymore. Rather they sorted their banking needs online. We took an approach that was unprecedented for ANZ. We chose to create a multi-platform campaign that lived entirely on social media, with no budget spent on traditional media.   Fortune Favours the Brave used the unique collaboration between the bank, the world-famous choreographer and a young student musician to create inspirational, entertaining and engaging content that would see ANZ welcomed onto students’ social feeds.