In 2011, OCBC created a people-powered content marketing strategy by listening to its consumers’ desires. Taking cue from the burgeoning popularity of the hipster culture in Singapore at the time of its launch, OCBC’s FRANK tapped into the lifestyle trend of youths and young professionals and tailored its content accordingly.
"Content marketing begins with understanding the buyer persona," Aldrina Thirunagaram, assistant vice president, digital marketing, OCBC Bank, said at Marketing’s Content 360 conference.
“We wanted to tell our consumers that FRANK is not all about credit cards, so we wanted to share stories that are relevant to the audience,” Thirunagaram said. The content team at OCBC adopted the look and feel of "hipster art" for FRANK’s products through its infographics, typography and photography.
OCBC maintained an active audience on its Facebook page, based on three key engagement screens which they found to be of most interest to its targeted audience. The bank found that millennials were more interested in curated posts pertaining to financial advice, lifestyle as well as events and news that were in the social media landscape.
As such, its Facebook page content was tailored to provide 1) information on how to be financially savvy, 2) tips on lifestyle choices and 3) socially relevant content in order to increase consumer engagement and pique their interests in current events.
Further, understanding the target audience’s need for more lifestyle content, FRANK launched a series of “list” content, with the aim of guiding the tastes of millennials.
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OCBC also used visual content to engage its young audience.
For its video campaign launched in 2014 titled, 'Get It Right This Christmas', Thirunagaram said OCBC “took a couple of risks when making the video.” The content team decided to cast a familiar face: the young boy was ‘Andy’ whose character became famous for the World Cup advertisement on gambling. According to Thirunagaram, working with familiar faces for content creation generated a lot of conversations with users. It also prompted shares and comments on OCBC’s campaign and helped to keep the bank more engaged and connected to its viewers. The decision to include a familiar face impacted the shareability of the content produced, Thirunagaran said.
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Another popular campaign OCBC launched for FRANK CNY Tips was called "O$P$", which featured two local female netballers with an extensive following on social media. According to Thirunagaran, the cast's popularity helped the video launch with considerable interest and buzz. Eager to play a "big brother" role to its viewers, the video was conceptualised by OCBC to convey tips for the Chinese New Year season while also reminding its viewers of a cultural practice common to locals in Singapore.
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Overall, Thirunagaram acknowledged that the importance of engagement is evident in the Facebook shares generated by online advocates for its visual content, which also led to positive response from online viewers.
For OCBC, creating a people-powered content marketing strategy relied heavily on the bank's willingness in listening to its consumers as well as suiting its content to align with current trends that are popular among its target audience.