Nedbank gets personal with Facebook connect app

As they say in 1985’s Back to the Future, “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
And we don’t need time machines either. 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke takes you on a journey of your future with their interactive Facebook application for Nedbank.

Nedbank wanted to show students on the brink of their university careers the possibility of a life where they have been smart about money, and can enjoy the rewards.

They already had a channel called “Sam”, a persona embodying a youth who is “Smart About Money”, with the message that within each and every young person, there is the potential to be this “Sam”. The next step was to deliver this message at Orientation Week at universities across the country.

7Dffrnt Knds of Smke was approached by Nedbank to come up with a solution for O Week with an interactive way to engage new students visiting the campus. The goal was not only to stand head and shoulders above the other banks at the banking mall, but to speak to students in their language. It was well received at O Week and increased Nedbank’s Facebook fans by 300 per cent.

Getting personal

7Dffrnt Knds of Smke devised an application which connected to Facebook. The idea was that students using the app would be posed the question, “Who is Sam?” and be taken on a journey to find out for themselves who exactly Sam is.

“Our objective was to make students realise that they could be smart about money, through a personal experience with Nedbank”, says Ryan Gandalf van Jaarsveld, MD 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke.

The application used, with the user’s permission, photos from their Facebook profile to put together a video that showed their future, a montage of graduation, weddings, first cars, first houses and more.  As each user watches the video, it becomes increasingly clear who Sam is, ending off with the line, “Do you recognise Sam?” and the user’s profile picture. Neil Clarence, Creative Director at 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke explains, “We’ve all seen hundreds of corporate videos or commercials that deal with banking products. What none of our target market had experienced was a video that they themselves starred in.”

For each user that watched the video, there was a unique variation of it, turning it into something truly personal and saying to students that they too can be Smart About Money with Nedbank. The real trick was the creative behind the video. “The script writing was critical,” explains Clarence, “It had to be generic enough to work with each photo pulled in by the app, but at the same time personal enough that it engaged the viewer. It was an intense writing job but I think we nailed it perfectly. The students’ responses only prove this.”

Once the user had watched the video, the application would post an update on their Facebook wall, sharing the link to the app and inviting others to try it out for themselves. It spread from one user to the next, but the real success came at the Orientation Week banking stalls, where Nedbank attracted a constant stream of curious students.

Ditch the DeLorean and find out for yourself how bright your future could be by visiting www.WhoIsSam.co.za