Background

Christmas. It’s a time when the carparks are full, consumers wander from shop-to-shop seeking the best gift, and businesses try in earnest to sell. It’s the busiest shopping period in the year, with the most transactions per capita, per day (i). PayPal is not a retailer and it’s not available in physical stores, so the challenge was to rise above the noise, become relevant to consumers and grab a piece of the action. PayPal needed to reinvigorate its annual Christmas campaign, Shop Off the Beaten Path (SOTBP) (ii). Refreshing a past campaign is no easy feat and PayPal needed to rewrite the rule book by shifting away from focusing on promoting the offering to changing Australian Christmas shopping habits. Business objectives: Drive an emotional connection to the PayPal brand and increase brand consideration Position PayPal as a partner to consumers and merchants during Christmas Increase transactions/payment volume across

Describe the creative idea

We knew one of the biggest pain-points for Christmas shoppers was sitting in traffic trying to find a carpark (iii). This insight led us to create PayPal’s Carpark Christmas Challenge. We teamed up with Aussie comedian and PayPal ambassador Matt Okine - one of Australia’s leading comedians. With his quick wit, he was the perfect choice to entertain our audience – and he had a highly engaged millennial following. We found shoppers in a carpark and got Matt to jump into their car and help them nail their shopping. Matt’s natural talent of getting to know people quickly meant we could nail our contestants’ Christmas list at the wheel of their car, using the SOTBP platform (iv) and PayPal before they had time to park. We created short episodes of the experience which were amplified via social and retargeted with our primary SOTBP messaging.

Describe the strategy

In 2016, 21m Christmas gifts were not “well-received” and 3m Aussies cashed-in on unwanted gifts (iv). It’s no surprise 59% of Aussies struggle to find exciting gifts (v). Our target audience of digital natives have a long list to buy for and they crave that feeling of getting the gift right. But they are time poor, so it’s a balancing act between getting it right and getting it done. This was our opportunity to put PayPal front and center as the connector of speed, convenience, and the right gifts. Having delivered two successful campaigns, we knew our audience responds to content that provides entertainment, but we wanted to go further. We wanted to change behaviour and help Aussies ‘Nail every gift this Christmas.’ The campaign had a strong bedrock built around PR, influencer and digital but we also saw social as an opportunity to show up differently.

Describe the execution

The episodes and teasers of the Christmas Carpark Challenge were targeted to a broad audience, made up of behavioural targets, Matt Okine fans and PayPal fans. Episode and teaser viewers were then retargeted with subsequent episodes and short cuts. Viewers were also retargeted with our primary SOTBP messaging. We engaged in a strategic partnership with Daily Mail Australia. The partnership had a first-in-market shoppable video ad unit allowing people to buy the gifts that Matt was finding and purchasing as they watched. We developed and executed a multi-phased earned strategy, designed to help Aussies nail gift-giving for everyone on their list. In conjunction with our hero campaign, we called upon our ecosystem of influencers to share their stories of how they nailed their Christmas lists thanks to PayPal. To close the loop, we continued the campaign with display ads which drove awareness of SOTBP and sales through the platform.

List the results

The Carpark Christmas Challenge was a huge success, achieving 3,054,424 impressions; 633 clicks; and 616, 713 video views. As a result, the SOTBP campaign also achieved all campaign objectives: Exceeded our good and great scenarios by +41% and +13% respectively, delivering 1,270,695 increased transactions, a 32% increase vs the 2017 campaign. Increased active accounts from 7.85M (October 2018) to 7.94M (January 2019) Increased online brand consideration from 22% in November 2018 to 27% February 2019 PayPal Australia ranked the number one Financial Services Brand: Banking & Payments according to YouGov’s Annual Financial Services Brand Buzz Rankings (January 2019). Positioned PayPal as a partner to consumers and merchants through: PR: 483 pieces and an estimated reach of 12.4 million (based on daily reach of all publications) Influencers: Engaged 22 influencers to post 39 pieces of content reaching over 430,000 Aussies and achieving 47,900 engagements with an average engagement rate of 11.1%.