ABOUT

If 155 years of business has taught HSBC anything it’s that change is one thing you can bank on. The arrival of COVID-19 required a complete turnaround of the bank’s 2020 marketing plans.

With our usual protagonist, Richard Ayoade, unable to ramble across the UK to deliver our messaging, we needed to find a new way of keeping our brand awareness front and center in spite of the drastically different financial and cultural context we found ourselves in.

We started by saying thank you. Asking comedian, Sandi Toksvig to step into the breach and help us voice our pride and gratitude to all of the local heroes, from near and far, who were keeping the country running while it was in lockdown.

No actors took part in the campaign, rather we cast real key workers, including NHS doctors and nurses, charity workers, farmers, couriers, bus drivers, HSBC branch staff, security guards, and shopkeepers. The TV ad, shot following social distancing rules, was accompanied by idents on ITV, out-of-home press executions, and social media posts.

The campaign was also backed up with rapid response press ads and social media posts that communicated the solutions HSBC UK was putting in place daily to help the people, communities, and businesses to continue thriving in the face of adversity.​​​​​​​

The results? The Local Heroes campaign outperformed HSBC UK’s 2019 Q2 advertising activity in terms of driving ad awareness, and it contributed to our highest levels of brand buzz since Q1 2019. Proving that a simple thank you and a show of appreciation can make all the difference.