• NatWest wanted to drive awareness amongst and engage with a teen audience
• They partnered with MTV to create a credible and relevant communication platform
• Introducing TV into the media mix had an unprecedented positive effect

The Challenge

The NatWest Adapt account was already a hugely successful and popular current account exclusively for 11-18 year olds. This was mostly due to its unique selling point of teens being allowed to design the look of their own debit card by either uploading a library shot or using their own image. Previously, NatWest hadn’t used TV advertising for the Adapt account because there had been concerns regarding the effectiveness of the medium at driving account sign-ups.

However, NatWest wanted to continue to hold on to the number one position in the market by hitting its ambitious sales target of account openings and they also wanted to increase card personalisation as they received revenue each time a new card design was uploaded.

To achieve these targets, they decided that a carefully positioned TV strategy would not only increase brand awareness but also would compete with more traditional ‘response-orientated’ media when compared on a response rate basis.

The TV Solution

Insight from Mediacom’s research showed that it is highly important for teens to be able to express their identity overtly. It also revealed, somewhat expectedly, that young people think that banking is boring, dull and not for them. However, with 63% of teens stating that they could not live without a TV and a high correlation between loving the medium and being heavy users, TV was identified as the perfect platform to increase recognition and reward of the Adapt card.

A simple spot campaign would not have sufficed to change the perception of banking within the teen market. Therefore, NatWest needed to align themselves with a credible youth brand to show how the Adapt account could bring a unique, individual element to banking. MTV, a popular music TV channel was chosen as the perfect partner for the Adapt account due to it being deemed “cool” by 60% of the target teen audience.

The campaign consisted of co-branded spots on-air and was supported by online activity. Radio and TV presenter Jo Good fronted the campaign to add that extra credibility.

Joint branded TV and online ads encouraged teens to enter a ‘Money can’t buy’ online competition where they had the chance to win a VIP all expenses paid trip to London. The ‘Express Yourself’ campaign promoted interaction by having a revenue sharing scheme for the top 10 card designs. If a teen’s design was voted into the top 10 by their peers, they then earned £1 for every time their design was downloaded.

Further brand alignment was achieved through the use of MTV’s iconic characters and MTV branding in the Adapt photo library, which teens were then able to use for their debit card designs. Ultimately, the partnership between NatWest and MTV was mutually beneficial as MTV branding appeared all over the Adapt section of the NatWest section of the website, giving them exposure to thousands of teenagers.

Results

Introducing TV into the media mix had an unprecedented positive effect for NatWest. The brand alignment with MTV gave the Adapt account real credibility amongst their target teen market. The campaign generated 34,522 referrals to the site, 4,000 card design downloads and 3,000 competition entries during the 6 week campaign.

Furthermore, analysis of response rates showed that the MTV partnership returned a response rate of 0.4%. Put in context with response rates of the online activity of 0.2%, this represents compelling evidence that the partnership with MTV was effective in engaging this elusive teen market.

“The partnerships with MTV and Jo Good gave us permission to promote the Adapt Account and the card personalisation feature in a way that was relevant, fresh and most of all credible.”

Stuart Kerr
Head of Advertising and Media