Objectives

BNY Mellon wanted to change its brand perception as an outdated and dormant bank to an industry thought leader. Our goal was to gain brand equity, familiarity, favorability and consideration between the hard-to-reach business-minders.

Insights

BNY Mellon is a legacy custodial bank that’s been an integral part of the global economy for over 200 years. And though they run an incredibly sophisticated operation, overseeing trillions of transactions a day, perception of BNY Mellon had changed from trusted innovator to outdated and dormant.  

To reverse the trend, we developed a new brand platform – Consider Everything – befitting of a company who looks at the financial world from every angle. And because a brand who “considers everything” doesn’t simply communicate like other brands in the financial space, we set out to find unique ways to reach unique audiences. 

Studies show that roughly a quarter of podcast listeners increase playback speed in order to consume more information. This phenomenon, called “Podfasting,” presented a unique opportunity to speak directly to the ideal consumer – business savvy super listeners hungry to soak in more knowledge in half the time. But how could we get them to pay attention when they breeze through ads at 2x speed?  

Strategy

Simple. We slowed things down – by recording a :15 second message, stretching it to :30, and placing it in the middle of The Economist's ‘Money Talks’ podcast. When played at double speed, our ad stood out to ‘podfasters’ by sounding perfectly normal and helped position BNY Mellon as the financial services company that sees trends and insights others don’t.

Execution

We partnered with the The Economist to launch this first-ever slowed down podcast ad.

BNY Mellon aligned with a trusted publication that has become a weekly go-to information source for finance and policy makers across the globe.

The synergies of these two brands created a perfect match to showcase the innovative and forward thinking nature of BNY Mellon’s Consider Everything philosophy.

Then we used our :30s audio ad running with The Economist’s Money Talks podcast, which was slowed down but stood out to those who listen at 2x the speed.

Results

This fresh and original execution caught the attention of over 70,000 hard-to-reach business-minded listeners, as well as trade press. Alongside other marketing activities that also leveraged the Consider Everything brand message, “Podfast” managed to reverse the decline in brand equity, contributing to lifts in familiarity, favorability and consideration – including that people are now 72% more likely to think of BNY Mellon as an industry thought leader. Reaching an entirely new kind of audience in a way no one had ever considered before – proof positive that BNY Mellon truly does Consider Everything.