Overview
Since its founding 160 years ago, First National Bank of Omaha (FNBO) has been an engine for local growth. Within their footprint, FNBO focuses on making its communities more successful. The philosophy is simple: The bank is only as successful as its community. So, when creating FNB’s next campaign, we rooted our research in this philosophy and we gave our campaign a title that reflected it: We Grow as One.
Execution
We strategically placed local businesses at the center of our message and our media. In other words, we shined a spotlight on them, not us. To do that, we researched dozens of local businesses that work closely with FNB. We eventually decided to feature a total of 31 local businesses spread across our five core markets: Omaha, Great Plains, Colorado, Illinois and Kansas.
Each had a different story to tell. We used videos and the written word to spotlight the businesses and their effect on the community. We asked questions to determine how FNB and its employees worked in the background, helping businesses with loans, financing and other banking expertise. While local businesses were the spark to a community’s success, we positioned FNB as a quiet partner, helping to fan the flames of prosperity.
Our tone was conversational and familiar. This was not just a business-to-business campaign; it was a campaign for the whole community, telling the story of local business, with FNB’s support as the backdrop.
We created social posts for each of the businesses and targeted them within their own community. Some posts featured a video, some featured an image or a quote. All of them were designed to show how the businesses sparked a community’s success, with FNB right behind them. Each drove to the local business’ feature blog post on WeGrowAsOne.com
We also told the We Grow As One story through paid media. We placed short video clips featuring interviews on Facebook, video ad networks and premium partners like ABC and NBC. We also ran a spot on TV that featured a father and son who owned their own restaurant, reinforcing FNB’s We Grow As One message.
To reach financially minded consumers who might be particularly receptive to our message, we placed paid advertorials featuring the business’ stories in the financial sections of newspapers like the Kansas City Star and Omaha World-Herald.
We also worked with local influencers in each of the markets, asking them to write about their own experiences at several of our partner businesses. Finally, we sent a personalized note to every business when their story launched, asking them to share it with employees, customers and on their social channels.
Results
In the first six months of the campaign, videos, articles and posts around the We Grow As One theme generated nearly 14.5 million impressions. We’ve created dozens of social posts featuring more than 30 spotlight businesses and garnered nearly 180,000 organic impressions. Influencers have written additional blog posts that have gathered 45,000 more organic impressions.
In addition, our #WeGrowAsOne hashtag is now used on our channels whenever we post a picture or share a story of any local business. Our Facebook posts have gained an engagement rate of nearly 1.5 percent – significantly higher than industry benchmarks for the financial category.
