YES Bank IPL Campaign Case Study showcases how the brand leveraged IPL and cricket fervor earlier this year to engage with the MSME sector.
YES Bank IPL Campaign Case Study explores how sporting leagues can be leveraged by BFSI brands.
Category Introduction:
Small and medium businesses make up an important segment of the Indian economy. But the product offerings of most banks for the organizations in the MSME sector are similar in nature with very little differentiation not only in terms of offerings but also in communication. Therefore, from a banking standpoint, the MSME sector with its very unique and specific needs poses a challenge but also provides for a lot of scopes in terms of unique communication and avenues to build brand recognition and brand recall.
Brand Introduction:
YES BANK is a private sector Bank founded in 2004, which is one of the youngest in the country and is focused on capturing mindshare and wallet share amongst the Indian youth.
Built from a startup type environment, the bank believes in open API Banking. YES BANK understands the importance of digital as a medium in the field of marketing and hence is fully committed to having a digitally-enabled ecosystem throughout the banking structure.
Summary
The campaign was devised with the idea of creating a platform that would not only be engaging for the MSME customers but also stand out in the plethora of non-differentiated communication from competition banks and financial institutions.
In a country like India, where cricket is almost synonymous with religion what better content peg than cricket to bring the business community together!
YES BANK launched ‘YES BANK PREMIER LEAGUE, a sporting platform to engage with the MSME community. This year saw the fifth successful edition of the franchise with the theme #MeriTeamMeriLeague.
Problem Statement/Objective:
With this campaign, YES BANK’s aim was not to go beyond just building brand preference, but the idea was to imbibe the brand as a part of the small businesses’ ecosystem. It was important to understand what exactly are entrepreneurs looking for, how they think and then create a platform/campaign which checks all the boxes in terms of their requirements.
The aim was to find common ground which would help the brand connect with the end consumer. The below aspects needed to be addressed before devising a campaign plan for the target audience:
Differences in aspirations of the entrepreneurs and different approaches to fulfilling them
A plethora of communication with regards to banking products but very little differentiation leading to a lot of clutter
Competition with other banking and financial institutions for mindshare and wallet share of the end consumer
Brief
Given the objective of the campaign (stated above), this was a particularly challenging task from a creative standpoint owing to the niche TG. To address this, YES BANK delved deeper into the behavior of this segment with regards to their thoughts, aspirations, and requirements to identify a sweet spot that the brand could leverage.
The brand leveraged consumer behavior to identify the area to leverage
The insights derived showed that the said segment was entrepreneurial, had a good topline but yet lacked recognition. YES BANK realized that the absence of recognition was the biggest issue facing the segment and decided to create a national-level platform for this.
The brand realized that nothing brings people in this country closer together than what cricket does and also the on-going cricket fever of IPL and the Cricket World Cup acted as the perfect opportunity.
Creative idea:
YES BANK Premier League provided small business owners the opportunity to exercise ownership over a team and in the process also garner recognition in the larger fraternity which was one of the biggest pain points that the Bank was trying to address.
This evolved into the creative idea of #MeriTeamMeriLeague, encapsulating the feeling of being the owner, coach, captain of a cricket team.
Challenges:
Capturing the mindshare of the SME community in the first quarter of the new financial year
Position YES BANK as a Bank which engages & understands its customers beyond banking
Opportunity to engage with key business influencers of the regions for potential business development
Building YES BANK Premier League as a brand in SME space, been the only Cricketing league dedicated for SMEs in India
Execution:
As a part of the execution plan, YESBANK chose video as its leading format and integrated this campaign in the overall content strategy. Given that the cricket frenzy was already in full swing, the Bank was able to warm up the audience with relatable content which tickled the funny bone in them and gave them a window into how teams across the country are preparing for the contest.
The content was designed to make MSME customers feel like it was their story, featuring them and their colleagues and which could very well be taking place on their own premises!
‘Masterclass with Cheteshwar Pujara’ was also organized. Apart from cricket tips and tricks, Pujara also shared anecdotes of his tours and experiences and also felicitated the winners.
This platform also provided for extended interaction opportunities by allowing participants’ families to be equally involved in the entire process.
The social media campaign was run on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accompanied by YouTube and Website amplification. Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation helped in targeting the relevant audiences for maximum results.
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