2012 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

Our takeover achieved an interaction rate of 0.30% rate, which exceeded Yahoo industry average for by 0.05% . The campaign resulted in 10,167 clicks from 3.3 million impressions. Out of the total impressions, 30% or 877,000 users were unique. From our last sliding room which drove traffic to the local UAE HSBC website, 2.71% of the 10,000 impressions clicked through. Only 353 users clicked to go back to Yahoo, which meant more than half landed on our home page. Out of the 72,000 landing arrivals on hsbc.ae, visits from the Yahoo takeover accounted for 43,000, an astounding near 60%.

Creative Execution

We needed to turn “the world’s local bank” into “the local’s world bank”. By highlighting one of the most recognizable beacons for world travelers, the HSBC bank sign, we could visually illustrate the connectivity of the bank and the universality of their service, regardless which of their 86 markets you may be in. “Welcome to a world where you’re never a stranger”. Yahoo’s global scale and reach was the perfect medium to take this idea into the digital world. We developed a metro execution with a small display banner reminding people of the message “However far you go, we’re always close by.” Once clicked on, the page was taken over by the Yahoo China page, indicating the number of branches in China. Followed by the Yahoo India page and the Yahoo Brazil page, again with the number of HSBC branches in each market.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

In the Middle East region HSBC was widely recognized by its positioning, “the world’s local bank” but there was very little awareness of how the bank’s global reach and connectivity translated into strength and expertise to the consumer which was negatively impacting their Brand Health Index.