Why is this work relevant for Integrated?

To raise awareness among Millennials that Zip’s new product Tap & Zip can be used everywhere to pay for everyday items, we designed a dynamic integrated campaign that stretched across multiple touchpoints, including OOH (billboards, transit, retail), radio, online audio, online video and social (Facebook, Instagram and TikTok). This integrated strategy successfully positioned Zip at the heart of Millennial cultural conversations happening across daily social feeds, and achieved the mass awareness needed to elevate Zip into a major modern brand in the financial payments category, with a unique presence.

Background

Buy-Now-Pay-Later brand Zip is a relatively recent entry into the highly competitive financial payments category. Its primary competitors are BNPL brands such as Afterpay, but Zip also competes for share of mind and spend with established payment brands like Visa. Zip had two objectives: a) rapidly grow brand awareness; b) get Millennials to understand that their latest product, Tap & Zip, is an easy way to pay for items everywhere, every day: from grabbing a coffee, to filling up at the petrol pump, to picking up the groceries, just by tapping their smartphone at the point of purchase. Our insight was that Millennials want everything now: from food and entertainment to shopping and experiences. The only thing holding them back is not having their paycheck available, now. Zip enables them to have their money now, but pay for it later, so they can get more of what they want.

Describe the creative idea

Our idea ‘Can I Zip It?' achieved the two key objectives by using a dynamic new remix of the classic hip hop track ’Can I Kick It?’ by A Tribe Called Quest, we created an instantly recognisable and extremely catchy audio element at the centre of our integrated campaign. This earworm rapidly created highly distinctive awareness for the campaign, and for the Zip brand. Second, the lyrical call-and-answer of ‘Can I Zip It?’ (this product?), and ‘Yes You Can!’, repeated across a variety of different payment scenarios, clearly and memorably communicated that Tap & Zip can be used to pay for a wide range of items everywhere, every day.

Describe the strategy

To bring ‘Can I Zip It?’ to life for our Millennial audience, we selected six of Australia’s most vibrant and socially active personalities, who together were perfect for demonstrating the breadth of items Australians can buy using Tap & Zip. The talent included international tennis star Nick Kyrgios (who used Tap & Zip in our campaign to pay for sporting goods); TV personality, DJ and fashion influencer Flex Mami (fashion); Masterchef judge and renowned food critic Melissa Leong (groceries); Channel Nine’s The Block judge and interior designer Darren Palmer (homewares); international DJ and professional surfer Fisher (restaurant meals); and popular beauty influencer Rowi Singh (makeup). These influencers delivered strong Millennial appeal; drove conversations and engagement across the social platforms crucial to our integrated content strategy; and collectively represented all of Millennials' key spending passions.

Describe the execution

Facebook, Instagram and TikTok executions positioned Zip at the heart of Millennial cultural conversations happening across daily social feeds. TikTok high impact formats (Top Views, Brand Takeovers) launched the campaign with a bang. Our music-centric idea also created an unmissable launch on Instagram Reels. Working with six major influencers ensured that high engagement was achieved, as well as excellent organic reach. Radio and online audio augmented the paid reach and frequency of our creative assets. Online video plus a range of OOH, including billboards, transit and retail, added to the campaign scale, delivering the mass awareness needed to elevate Zip into a major brand in the payments category. Campaign timings were phased for maximum impact. TikTok and Reels were front-weighted in the first week of activity to create an unmissable roadblock effect. OOH, radio and online video/audio followed, to cumulatively build increasing awareness over the following months.

List the results

Zip brand awareness grew by 6% to 77%, significantly outperforming the main competitor, Afterpay. The campaign generated a 42% search uplift for Zip on YouTube, showing we had made the brand part of the cultural conversation and increased consideration. The campaign generated an amazing +21% brand uplift on TikTok, vs. the category benchmark of 5%. Understanding of the new Tap & Zip product jumped from 11% to 18% amongst Zip customers.