Why is this work relevant for Media?

This campaign used smart media planning and tactical sports alignment to deliver a campaign which provided a level of scale over and above its media spend, drove levels of audience exposure never-before-seen for the brand, and significantly over-delivered on reach to create uplifts against multiple brand and business metrics.

Background

Beforepay was the first brand to join the newly established Pay On Demand category, offering its customers the ability to access up to $1,000 of their wages on demand. But even as an early entrant to the category, they were being significantly outspent and outshouted by competitors such as MyPayNow, who were using large scale media buys to get ahead in the market. With a category that was still new to consumers, and a brief that specified the need to increase both share of voice and spontaneous awareness, our challenge was to create a media strategy which punched above its weight. We had to deliver enough scale to bridge the gap between Beforepay and its competitors, drive the engagement needed for consumers to understand the brand, and gain trust in the crowded and sometimes negatively perceived fintech category.

Describe the creative idea / insights (30% of vote)

We first needed to hone in on our key media audience for this campaign, which we identified through measurement tools as Budget Conscious - Aussies 21-45 in Metro areas who have an income between $50,000 and $80,000 per year, are financially conscious, and believe credit enables them to access what they want. These attitudinal layers were added to ensure we were reaching a consumer with the need for a product that helped them manage the timing of their personal finances, while also capturing those who might need some temporary financial flexibility or support. With an audience identified, we knew our strategy needed to focus on big moments with high impact and large audiences. But with such a new category and brand, we knew we needed more than just scale to ensure an effective journey from exposure, to brand awareness, and ultimately to brand and category understanding.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

It was these parameters that led us to our final strategic platform: Set Your Rhythm - a strategy which was focused on delivering large scale impact coupled with content and media to educate our audience on the personalisation and immediacy that Beforepay provides. This strategy was broken up into three key communication pillars: Scale & Impact – focused on bold and trusted environments, Demonstrating Personalisation – creating partnerships to build trust by proving the brand proposition, and Immediacy of Access – connecting to key usage occasions. We then began identifying and selecting key opportunities based on these pillars, and used our media investment expertise and negotiation knowledge to deliver our final media plan.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

Scale & Impact came to life through TV alignment with the biggest and boldest events of the year, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on Channel 7, The Bachelor on Channel 10, and sporting sponsorships with ESPN, Fox Sports, and Sports streaming service Kayo. Our Olympics activity focused on a spot buy across multiple day parts, while Bachelor activity featured TV spots as well as 10” billboards. Activity across ESPN, Fox Sports and Kayo saw TVC and video alignment with a range of sports including AFL, NRL, UFC, and more. This pillar was supplemented through video and large format OOH. Our Demonstrating Personalisation pillar featured a podcast partnership with Aussie comedy icons Hamish & Andy including live reads and a bespoke radio creative, backed by high impact display and interactive audio ads. Our Immediacy of Access pillar was brought to life through programmatic video, digital OOH panels and CTA’s on social.

List the results (30% of vote)

This campaign proved to be an immense success, demonstrated by uplifts across key brand metrics, growth in new customers, and increases in overall business revenue. Our Olympics activity significantly over-delivered against planned reach. Combining this with an increase of organic search during the aligning period indicates our activity drove the share-of-voice Beforepay needed, and translated this into website traffic. We also drove increases in brand metrics as measured by a pre and post brand study. This data showed an increase in spontaneous awareness - one of the hardest metrics to move, as well as increases in prompted awareness, and likelihood to use Beforepay. These results culminated to drive thousands of new customers over the campaign period, and brought in millions in new revenue, demonstrating the power of strategic sponsorship alignment and setting the platform for Beforepay to go for gold in Australia.