PNC Bank Targets Gens X and Y with Video Content at Hulu and YouTube
PNC Bank’s goal for its current “Be the Boss” campaign is fairly fundamental and, well, “old-school”: persuade consumers to open accounts. But when you consider what it’s actually marketing (a digital banking product called Virtual Wallet) and how it’s reaching its target demographic (digital content aimed at Gens X and Y), you have anything but “old-school” advertising. In fact, you have a highly-integrated and data-driven content marketing strategy.
In addition to being informative about Virtual Wallet’s product features, PNC’s videos are humorous. In each one, Virtual Wallet helps consumers see their big financial pictures and take charge (CEO style) of their money. All of their spending categories are represented by characters like the sloppy, sweaty and nervous “Unexpected Spending” guy and the “Gym Membership” guy, who assumes that crunching numbers is exercise. Through stories, the commercials from PNC become entertainment, tapping a huge (and still growing) trend for capturing and keeping consumer attention.
“Be the Boss” videos appear on Hulu and YouTube “pre-roll” – ahead of the television shows and videos being consumed online. But these commercials don’t just roll-out to everyone who watches a particular show, as they would with television advertising. Instead, PNC uses data to target specific users based on demographics and behavior. A recent American Banker article on the PNC campaign explains, “To determine where … to spend media ad dollars, the bank runs an audience management platform on its website to track visitor data and identify segments. It then marries such internal data with several external sources, including subscriber data supplied by media giant Hearst. All collected data – external and internal — is non-personally identifiable information. Once it combines data about online shopping habits from various sources with financial information like investments, PNC says it creates a so-called demand management capability that helps it decide where to place the ads.”
As you would expect, PNC Bank promotes “Be the Boss” across many of its digital and social assets, including branding its Virtual Wallet YouTube channel with the campaign:
The channel features product demos, as well as extended versions of the commercials:
What we like about the campaign:
- PNC Bank uses data at the outset to inform its targeting and direct its ad spend, as well as throughout the campaign, focusing on metrics like video completion, website clicks and social interactions.
- The “Be the Boss” marketing strategy is aligned with the banking product: a digital account suited to Gen X and Y consumers. It uses the right medium (video) and tone (entertainment) for this demographic, and the content is relevant: it focuses on the account as a financial tool that can help these consumers develop good habits related to their money… and their bank.
