ING experiments with Viral Marketing Campaign
Steve Rubel beat me to this, but still here I go.
Is it the first financial institution that goes for a online viral marketing campaign? According to Steve it is not. Still ING Direct is quite brave and innovative to try this out.
Yesterday, ING Direct USA launched a viral marketing campaign focused on reaching renters and potential first time home buyers. The campaign outlines the virtues of home ownership and promotes ING Direct’s Orange Mortgage product.
The whole campaign is supported by a dedicated website called MoveOutMoveUp.com. The site contains video clips and games depicting the humorous and often frustrating side of renting. Next to that a quite appealing bonus item could be a hidden secret mortgage offer that effectively reduces the mortgage closing cost to zero.
One of the most exciting and viral features of the campaign is that ING Direct has seeded its short films on a viral video site like Youtube.com (already three weeks ago!). You can watch the clips via this YouTube channel.
With reputation risk and compliance at the forefront of every bankers mind these days, the step to start a campaign like this is very brave.
But, where the campaign to an average person with a very conservative stance towards banking operations might not be well received, to the targeted groups in the US society (obviously “the connected young/first time home buyers” or Generation Y) a campaign like this might be very well suited. This group might even have been waiting for something like this, given ING Direct’s reputation of challenging and non-traditional campaigns.
As of this moment the video’s have been watched around 100 – 200 times each. I wonder what it will be in a week’s time? Keeping a tight watch on “ING Direct on Technorati”.
Edit: the press release (free registration required)
(Disclaimer: I am employed with a subsidiary of ING Group, but not with ING Direct)
Technorati tag(s): ING Direct, ING, ING Group, Viral, Viral marketing, Bank, YouTube
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posted Sep 15, 09:56 pm on Sep 15, 2006 |
category: Marketing
/ Social software
You hit the nail on the head. From an outside viral perspective what ING DIRECT is doing with MoveOutMoveUp.com may seem conservative, but from a banking/compliance (and major brand) perspective it is really pushing the boundaries.
Here is one more perspective: For those commentators who are already saying if you’re not getting millions of views on this it is not a success or ‘viral’. If you’re selling ice tea and making a few pennies on a sale you certainly need to influence a large number of people. But if you’re selling a Porsche – or mortgage, you only have to influence a relatively small group of people to have your effort break even. – From someone on the marketing team behind this.
— Jurie Sep 18, 03:52 pm #
Hi Jurie,
Thanks for your insightful comment and new perspective of when this is a success to you.
I wonder what will be the general concensus in the end (blogosphere and ING internal) on the success of the campaign, of which the YouTube thing was only just a part of course.
Marcel
— Marcel Sep 18, 09:36 pm #
Marcel, nice blog – and thanks for your post on My Cup of Cha which led me to Jurie’s comment.
Jurie, conservative or pushing the boundaries – that does seem to be an arbitrary dimension as you indicate by plotting the large amount of small profits against a small amount of large profits as other possible measure of success.
Be it a success or not on some dimensions, what I like about the ING Direct experiment is that it shows there is no Midas touch to anything we do on the Internet. YouTube is “hot” but not a free ride. Let’s stay sharp …
— david garceran nieuwenburg Sep 20, 06:11 pm #
Hi David,
Thanks for stopping by and leaving this thoughtful comment.
Marcel
— Marcel Sep 20, 10:32 pm #
@Marcel and Jurie
Marcel, I agree with your comment that this is a small step for man, but a giant leap for ING, and I am glad that this step was taken.
If we combine the ING Direct effort with the ING Pacific blog and the temporary Nationale-Nederlanden World Soccer Championship site, which had a.o. an MP3 dowload of the song from the commercial and a soccerblog, we’re doing allright in Finance country.
However, the rest of the world does not compare ING just with other insurance companies or Banks, but with all other types of businesses as well. In my opinion this means that ING should focus on what the market is ready for and not on which steps competitors have already taken.
Jurie, You’re absolutely right in stating that the number of views is not the only measurement of success, but I have the experience that in leadgeneration (at ING), you need to start with a fairly high number of contacts to create enough traffic in your sales funnel. I’d be very interested to learn more about your conversion rates.
— Jan Kees Sep 27, 10:52 am #
Great discussions! So a month later… YouTube may be the hot topic, but interestingly our greatest successes on building interest and traffic to the site has not been YouTube by a long stretch.
Great comment by Jan, and back to my original comment. Users (and bloggers/tech writers) will judge work by broad standards and think there is so much more that could have been done with the site to get user generated content, community, discussions, etc. So it may, subjectively, appear like a more conservative effort, while fellow bankers may think it was really adventurous.
— Jurie Oct 19, 07:16 pm #
Hi Jurie,
Thanks for coming back here and providing this insight in the campaign. I just wonder: what was the “greatest success on building interest and traffic”?
Regards,
Marcel
— Marcel Oct 19, 07:37 pm #