Banks need a face – the Postbank Young Money App

In 2018, Postbank launched the Young Money App, an innovative product aimed at young people between the ages of 7 and 18 that enables them to manage their own pocket money and thus learn about financial management in a fun way.

Problem

Banks provide complex and intangible products that fit customers’ lives. Consumers regularly use banking products for everything from daily cashless payments and monthly contracts for rent and insurance to real-estate purchases and asset management. Aside from acute needs, however, the “conventional” customer often has no interest in banking products. Financial products always need to be explained and banks remain largely faceless institutions.

The following were defined in advance as particularly promising target groups:

• Parents aged 28-48 with at least one child aged 7-18
• Girls aged 10-15 who regularly receive pocket money

Young people had previously not been a Postbank target group, making it largely impossible to use established marketing channels and measures to market the app. To solve this double challenge – emotionalising speech and addressing new target groups – Postbank carried out an influencer marketing strategy with TRG.

“30,000 YouTube video views and over 35,000 engagements with Instagram”

Results

Social media and influencers are a social reality, especially for young people. They are trustworthy brand ambassadors and can support both the development of brands and sales.

In a process involving close communication between TRG and Postbank, four influencers were identified who, firstly, have good access to one of the target groups and, secondly, are able to raise the topic of a “pocket-money app” with a high degree of authenticity.

The total reach was approximately 650,000 followers/fans. The most important social platforms are YouTube, where complex products can be comprehensibly explained, and Instagram, which allows a particularly authentic approach. Aside from the app download, the opening of the relevant Postbank checking account was also encouraged via an exclusive incentive in the form of a 50-euro shopping voucher.

Two of the influencers offered a combination of Youtube video, Instagram Story and Instagram post. Two others offered a combination of Instagram Story and Instagram post. To ensure maximum authenticity, the influencers independently proposed, produced and – after approval – successively published the content throughout the duration of the campaign.

The campaign clearly exceeded expectations, especially when it came to the app installs. The KPIs for the commitment were also strong and were rated as a great success by the customer. The two YouTube clips alone garnered more than 30,000 views. There were 35,000 cross-platform likes and over 1,000 comments.
 

Conclusion

Influencer marketing is a strong channel for addressing target groups emotionally and authentically. This applies not only to products in areas like fashion, beauty, etc., that are emotionally charged by their very nature – but also and especially to everyday products. The prerequisites for successful implementation are:

• The selection of influencers who match the campaign goal
• Good project management, especially in the coordination of influencers
• A sufficient budget
• A high degree of trust in influencers as content producers
• An attractive incentive as an additional sales trigger and for optimal performance measurement