Company: BMO Financial Group
Company Description: Established in 1817, BMO Financial Group is a highly diversified financial services provider based in North America. With total assets of US$614 billion and more than 45,000 employees, BMO provides a broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management and investment banking products and services to more than 12 million customers.
Nomination Category: Thought Leadership Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Thought Leadership Campaign of the Year - Business Services
 Nomination Title: See Further 2024
- Which will you submit for this nomination, a video of up to five (5) minutes in length about the nominated PR campaign or program, or written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the nominated video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video.
- If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this first question: Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched:
February 9th, 2024
- If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this second question: Describe the genesis of the nominated campaign or program: the reasons it was initiated, the challenges it was created to address, the problems it was developed to solve, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 97 words used.
See Further is a digital advertising campaign targeting C-suite and institutional investors with custom-content that goes beyond the expected to help them see further as they navigate global and local challenges. The opportunity was to use insight-driven creative and media strategies to impact the brand and uncover lead generation potential.
To deepen credibility with our target market (i.e. the “C”-suite and institutional investors) and drive increased brand awareness and consideration and influence demand capture by distributing the right thought leadership content aligned to strategic business priorities for Capital Markets and Commercial Banking in the U.S.
- If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this third question: Describe the development of the campaign or program: the planning process, the goal setting, the subject and content development, the scheduling, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 247 words used.
Through a moments mapping exercise, we isolated passive and active moments to reach our target audience. Afterward, we took. a full funnel approach and used upper, mid and low funnel digital advertising to positively impact the brand and consideration for BMO and positively impact organic lead generation for U.S. Commercial.
To see how content-based advertising could impact our brand, consideration and lead generation, we used a distribution strategy grounded in the execution of 1 The right message (creative) to 2 The right audience (target) in 3 The right moment (media).
1 The Right Message: We deployed our master creative platform, See Further, that utilized a compelling visual peel-to-reveal effect, consistent look, feel, tone and voice across all assets and ensured that the ad copy was provocative to create intrigue about the content and cut through.
2 The Right Audience: We used first party data to target prospects and clients directly and ga to build lookalike audiences. From the campaign-specific media moments mapping exercise, we identified high value media opportunities to reach our target using third party data providers.
3 The Right Moment: We conducted a moments mapping session with our media and creative agencies to carefully craft a framework for where our target audience was in both active (business mindset) and passive (personal mindset) moments of their lives. This guided the media and targeting strategy used as well as the campaign landing page construct to allow visitors to self-triage based on featured content and banking capabilities/services.
- If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this fourth question: Outline the activities and concrete results of this campaign or program since the beginning of January 2023. Even if your initiative started before January 2023, limit your response to activities and results since the beginning of July 2020 only (up to 250 words):
Total 174 words used.
The 2024 campaign resulted in:
Brand Impact:
Site traffic up 367% YOY (vs. 150% target); 588,000 unique visitors
Wi-Connect Brand Lift Study:
+47% lift in positive sentiment towards BMO
+191% lift in mentions of BMO as the brand which provides valuable insights
+100% lift in travelers saying they are likely to consider BMO for their financial needs
Programmatic: 11X display and 17X native benchmarks; efficient at 10% and 6% of respective CPC benchmarks
YouTube 4.6X, Meta 2.7X, Cluep 1.1X and Wi-Connect 2.3X above benchmarks
Consideration Impact:
Average Time Spent with content 5:39 vs. 2:12 industry benchmark
Programmatic: 9.3X display and 12.7X native benchmarks; efficient at 8% of the respective CPC benchmarks
Social & Search: LinkedIn 1.5X, Meta 22.5X and Search 1.3X benchmarks
Lead Generation Impact:
35% of leads that indicated revenue of >$20MM/year (key marker for a U.S. Commercial Banking prospect) were from online ads (LinkedIn, Bloomberg etc.) and search (Google) demonstrating the campaign had a positive impact on lead generation
- Optional: Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
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