The latest version of The Works study found that HSBC’s first-person ad was one of the most effective ads (top 25%). HSBC Facebook
Financial data is typically tricky and hard to understand. Then it makes no sense that a short video ad on Facebook giving financial help would be ranked in the top 25% of ads based on how well people use them. Yet, the latest version of Kantar’s The Works study shows that HSBC has done just that.
In the ad for HSBC Global Money, a woman uses cashless technology on her HSBC card to buy many things in another country. HSBC Facebook She is shown on a beach and in other beautiful places, which shows how travel can make people want to go somewhere. High-contrast subtitles of the information in the speech are shown on top of the action.
HSBC Facebook
The 20-second vertical video ad for High Street Bank uses a first-person view to make the user feel like they are paying for things in a different country. By doing this, it shows how easy it is to make foreign payments with HSBC in a way that is relevant to the viewers’ lives and speaks directly to them.
In an environment where people can skip, it’s important to get people’s attention and get your brand and main point across early on.
The Works study, which was made with the help of Marketing Week and the Advertising Association’s Trust Working Group, asked 750 people, 150 people per ad, what they thought of five of September’s best Facebook ads.
“I liked the places where the ad was recorded,” one person who answered the Kantar poll that The Works is based on said. I liked how the card was used too—as if it were from my point of view.” HSBC Facebook
That wouldn’t have happened if the ad wasn’t made to work on Facebook. Only 6% of people who watched this ad did so with sound on, which shows how important captions are for getting information across visually. HSBC Facebook The text on the screen gives the information in a way that people who answered the Kantar poll said was “very visual” even though it had “a lot of information.”
It was called “informative” by one responder. People liked that it said there are no fees to use the card abroad, and they said it “kept their attention.”
Length and clarity
While most people only watch the ad for four seconds, Lynne Deason, Kantar’s head of creative excellence UK, says, “By this point, the ad has hooked people with the concept of ‘love to travel,’ with the debit card that comes with the HSBC global money account shown front and center, and the no fees message has landed.”
“In a place where people can skip, getting people’s attention and getting across the brand and main message quickly are essential for success.”
Deason says that the ad does a good job of giving people new information from HSBC that is very important to them personally (top 25%) and does so in a way that people enjoy and find interesting. HSBC Facebook The ad is also seen as very inspiring—it’s in the top 15% of UK ads—and it speaks to both current and future customers. This is very important for HSBC.
“Branding is in about the top third of all ads in our UK database,” she says. “This is important to make sure that people know which bank is offering the benefits and to raise awareness of HSBC overall.” HSBC Facebook
This amount of success on Facebook and other social platforms, where advertisers usually can’t choose where their ads will show up, shows how important it is to make content that fits the platform. HSBC Facebook
