2015 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

All children think about their future. But, 73% of parents in the UAE have not had a conversation with their children about their future. (Source: Truth About Families, UAE, 2014) To promote its new children’s savings plans to parents, Emirates NBD, Middle East’s leading bank, started that conversation, by creating a social experiment where we asked children to send a message to their future selves. As an experiment, “Hey Future Me…” sought to know what about the future do children really think about. And while the children spoke to their future selves, their parents watched. Turns out, they seek many more achievements in their future than just the professions we imagine them in. We targeted children with this social experiment via top schools in the country, enabling affluent parents to learn about their children’s real aspirations and resultantly, increase acquisitions for Emirates NBD’s children’s savings plan, under its Priority Banking proposition. This is enabling Emirates NBD to strengthen and extend its retail distribution network for its Children’s Savings Plans as well as for additional products like Life Insurance, to schools via newer chapters of “Hey Future Me…” potentially aiming to expand it even to the Ministry of Education in 2015.

The Brief

To reach affluent parents, Emirates NBD sought to help them learn about their children’s real dreams, aspirations and uncertainties about their future and increase acquisitions for its children’s savings plan. This meant shifting Emirates NBD from being seen as yet another bank that sells products and services for children to being a bank that knows children well, will help parents know their child better and will help give children the right financial support, helping them preparing for a future of their making. And while at it, Emirates NBD sought to build more brand affinity along with talkability.

Results

(1) +34% increase in online visits for savings plans. Engagement 40% > regional benchmarks. (2) 20% increase in savings plans. +10% over targets. (3) The video became the most shared video by a bank in 2014. Used as a B2B marketing tool, it generated partnerships with leading schools including networks such as GEMS and Raffles. Children across schools participated in the experiment and the idea became a part of curriculums. (4) Student engagement programs, such as ‘Banker For A Day’ were launched. (5) The idea travelled as parents shared “Hey Future Me…” social media messages. (6) Endorsements by educational institutions: “At HCT, Hey Future Me… was inspiring and helped facilitate that kind of environment. We used the video to introduce an in-class project for my level 2 students, inspired by the video.” (Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE) (7) Winner of Gold Effie and Midas Awards.

Execution

This was crafted as a unique social experiment that attracted UAE’s children and their parents across a new marketing channel for Emirates NBD: Schools. We targeted children with this social experiment via leading UAE schools, enabling affluent parents to learn about their children’s real aspirations and resultantly, increase acquisitions for Emirates NBD’s children’s savings plans, under its Priority Banking proposition. The video, posted on YouTube was shared across Emirates NBD’s owned media touchpoints: (a) The Facebook page, (b) The Twitter profile, and (c) The YouTube channel. And it got more visibility via YouTube seeding as well as advertising. Leading offline and online publications featured the idea across their platforms. Aside from becoming an ongoing, organically growing idea that is being embraced by government and semi-government institutions, the idea has also become a part of school curriculums (GEMS, Raffles, etc.) as a class project, reaching more children and their parents too.

The Situation

Emirates NBD, Middle East’s leading bank, needed to find a distinctive way to position its children’s plans. Simon Sinek, a thought leader, famously quoted on TED that, “People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And if you share what you believe, you will attract those who believe what you believe.” We needed to communicate a meaningful role and do it in an insightful manner that would strike a chord with parents and make them buy into our “why”. So, buying the products that we offer for their children would be a natural next step.

The Strategy

Our insight: All children think about their future. But, 73% of parents in the UAE have not had a conversation with their children about their future. Our strategic idea: We reached parents based on the above insight through a distinctive, clutter-breaking and meaningful idea that was a first in its category and a first in the MENA region. And we created “Hey Future Me…” - a unique social experiment, crafted and launched as a digital video; where we asked children to send a message to their future selves. And while the children spoke to their future selves, their parents watched. Our role: We showed that Emirates NBD knew children better than any other bank, that children were unique and different, with each child taking a different path towards their individual futures and that it understood the scope and extent of their financial needs.