• NatWest needed to convince new students to sign up to its bank account
• A targeted TV campaign during the summer is continued via IPTV once they arrive at college
• Year on year growth in new accounts hit 24% during the IPTV activity

The challenge

Reaching students is a tough game. It is harder to engage them with advertising and they have much less structure to their lives.

And yet for banks they are a key market. From the moment they finish their A Levels they are heavily targeted with offers of free laptops, iPods and tickets to events. NatWest’s contribution was to offer them a free railcard – a distinctly unsexy offer.

Research indicated there were three key periods for targeting students as they prepared to arrive at college and university for the first time.

Twenty percent of students opened their bank accounts between finishing A levels and getting the results, 65% opened them after they got their results and 15% left it until they arrived at university.

The TV solution

Analysis of media consumption revealed that students watch an enormous amount of TV, 66% watch 56 hours or more a week, making broadcast TV a key medium for reaching the majority of the target audience.

In order to hit the 85% of students who organise their finances before coming to university, NatWest targeted their favourite TV programmes, creating a bespoke schedule of multichannel spots as well as key terrestrial spots. Even with a very small budget, an impressive 63% coverage level was achieved.

The final part of the plan to reach the remaining 15% was more tricky, but technology offered a no-wastage solution. IPTV allows advertising to be targeted only to relevant consumers and inside every student room was an IPTV network called Freewire.

Freewire uses broadband network to transmit more than 50 channels to a laptop or PC, half of them for free. Research indicates that 92% of students watch TV via their laptop

The network consists of 160,000 students and by using this network, NatWest could make sure its message reached only the people it most needed to connect with.

MediaCom worked with IPTV specialists packetVISION, persuading Channel 4 to install special technology on its ad-server. This would ensure the NatWest ads were only broadcast to Freewire viewers.

The ad, showing a pair of out-of-touch marketers being punted along the River Cam by more knowledgeable junior Will, appeared in key shows such as The Sex Education Show, Miss Naked Beauty and Embarrassing Teenage Bodies.

In total, 370 spots were substituted with the 40-second NatWest Student Spot delivering an average of 1,932 impacts per slot.

The other media used were online and press.

Results

In the six weeks when IPTV was the only medium used, NatWest saw new account growth of 24% year on year. Combining the conventional and IPTV trial saw the brand exceed targets by 20%.

Spontaneous ad awareness for the NatWest Student Account was 74%, significantly higher than the nearest rival HSBC at 44%.

“In becoming number one in this sector, we have learnt that being front-of-mind at exactly the right time is key when advertising our student account. While the most crucial period is between A-level results day and the start of term, a significant minority of students will leave it until the very last minute and open their account once at uni or college. From a communications point of view, efficiency is then absolutely essential and IPTV gives us zero wastage and exceptional coverage on key campuses.”

Richard Taylor, Brand Director, NatWest