Background
Yes Bank was a client of Windchimes, a boutique social media agency that I had joined in 2013. The bank made substantial investments in brand-strengthening associations and wanted to appeal to young professionals, NRIs and HNIs. As their agency, we saw a wonderful opportunity to create engaging social media content and differentiate from other private sector banks.
Yes Bank Maximum – The IPL Campaign
In 2013, Yes Bank inked a five-year associate sponsorship deal with India’s foremost event property, The Indian Premier League (IPL). At that time, Yes Bank offered the maximum interest of 7% on savings bank accounts, which led to a brand integration where every six in the tournament would be called a ‘Yes Bank Maximum’ and the player to hit most sixes in every match would receive the ‘Yes Bank Maximum Award’.
We white-labelled a cricket game developed by Zapak and adapted it to a Facebook app with a daily leaderboard. People hitting the most sixes in the virtual game won match tickets while other top scorers received co-branded IPL merchandise. Our content strategy included tournament updates by engaging characters, IPL-themed memes, trivia quizzes and match predictions.
We created plentiful content to engage social media audiences. This included fun characters posting tournament updates, memes around the IPL, inviting mass participation using trivia quizzes and initiating healthy debates to predict winners of upcoming matches. We fostered user-generated content by incentivising fans to spot Yes Bank branding in stadiums and share pictures with #YesBankMaximum for a chance to win merchandise.
The IPL campaign grew stronger with every season and still counts among the best social media work ever done for Yes Bank. Metrics like share of voice, engagement rate and community growth used to skyrocket during the campaign. There were remarkable instances when #YesBankMaximum trended ahead of #PepsiIPL on Twitter. Undoubtedly, every instance of the campaign won several awards, including the prestigious CMO Asia Award.
Yes! I am the Change – CSR Campaign
Yes Foundation, the CSR arm of Yes Bank, organised an annual film-making challenge, tasking participants with creating a short film in 101 hours on a designated socially relevant theme. Our role encompassed managing the entire digital lifecycle of the event, right from the initial announcement unveiling the theme to soliciting entries and promoting the event for better participation.
Shortlisted entries were screened in multiple cities at short-film festivals in the presence of eminent guests like Mr Amitabh Bachchan. Top 10 entries would receive financial support up to ₹2.5 million along with the opportunity to be mentored by remarkable filmmakers like Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Vikramaditya Motwane, Pritish Nandy and Shoojit Sircar.
We amplified the reach of the campaign by hosting all entries on the Yes Bank YouTube channel for public viewing and letting people vote on social media to announce a ‘popular choice’ winner.
Balancing Product Promotion and Brand Associations
We deployed social media campaigns to creatively promote all of Yes Bank’s brand associations, including event sponsorships like the Times LitFest and movie partnerships like 2 States and Bewakoofiyaan, among numerous others.
While brand-building was the primary objective, we ingeniously balanced product promotion with subtle integrations within creative campaigns. These campaigns grabbed the attention of the right audience and gradually moved towards conversion, which could be signing-up for an online account opening or simply filling-in a lead form on the website. Here are some examples from one of the campaigns, designed to promote NRI Banking services.
