Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series highlighting cause marketing campaigns from around the world called ‘Global Voices’ and brought to you by Your Public Interest Registry. We hope our team of international contributors will shed insights into cause marketing in their home country and inspire you to expand your own purpose-driven horizons.
One of the more colourful cause campaigns that we saw in Australia last year came from ANZ Bank, one of Australia’s big four banks. Given the banking sector’s reputation for conservatism with a capital ‘C’, this campaign was truly a courageous offering from ANZ.
For the last eight years, ANZ have been a supporter of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. For those of you who may not have heard of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras – it started life as a protest march for the rights of the gay and lesbian community back in 1978. Over the years it has become a global beacon and a celebration of diversity, not to mention another excuse for Sydney to party (as if it needs an excuse)! Its purpose now is to inspire the world to love each other by celebrating the power and beauty of diversity.
Last year, ANZ became the inaugural principal partner for the festival. The bank set out to leverage their partnership with the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras to communicate ANZ’s support for diversity, respect and inclusion; and to do so in a fun and meaningful way. Their target market was not just the LGBTI community, but also their own employees, prospective employees and consumers.
Turning ATMs into dazzling GAYTMs!
Ten ATMs in central Sydney were each transformed into unique “GAYTMs” for three weeks surrounding the Mardi Gras. Each GAYTM celebrated a part of Gay and Lesbian culture and was decorated individually with sequins, mo’s, rhinestones, leather, denim and fur. The GAYTMs included #hellosailor, #mo-town, #drag-it-up and #unicorn-dream. You can check out the wonderfully colourful and expressive GAYTMs at the microsite that was created to tell each GAYTMs story.
Cash out and proud
Messages including ‘Happy Mardi Gras’ and ‘Hello Gorgeous’ were shown on the screens of the GAYTMs, which also dispensed rainbow coloured receipts with the message ‘Cash out and proud’.
During the campaign period, ANZ donated all GAYTM operator fees to Gay and Lesbian charity organisation, Twenty10.
The campaign naturally lent itself to social, using the seeded hashtag #GAYTM along with hashtags of each of the individual GAYTM names. The creation, installation, and delighted public reactions to the GAYTMs became content across Instagram, You Tube, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook. And #GAYTM neatly seeded itself into the social vernacular.
One of the aims of this campaign was to get Australia and indeed the world talking – to fuel a social conversation and in doing so, spread three of ANZ’s corporate values: diversity, inclusion and respect.
The campaign was a huge success with 62 million media impressions across 70 countries, with 90% positive social sentiment. Media and bloggers were not only reporting on the GAYTMs, but praising ANZ for making such a bold public statement. People commented through social feeds that they were proud ANZ customers or they would seriously consider switching to ANZ as a result of this campaign. The campaign also lead people to seek out the GAYTMs, which of course increased the donation amount.
The campaign also delivered ANZ the highest engagement rate of all Australian banks across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It attracted thousands and thousands of new customers in New South Wales. Staff feedback was outstanding, and in June, the campaign was awarded a Grand Prix in Outdoor at the 2014 Cannes Lions.
A celebration of shared values
ANZs 2014 GAYTM campaign was bold. It was beautiful. And it was clever. It was indeed a celebration of the LGBTI community and of the values the community shares with ANZ of support for diversity, respect and inclusion.
Full credit to the agency Whybin/TBWA Group Melbourne and of course to the client team at ANZ who had the courage to break the mould of conservative bank sponsorship activation campaigns.
Sydney loved it. And so it seems did the rest of the world.
Leave a Reply