Data centric media planning and buying in highly regulated finance sector

Together are a market leading property finance company who offer a range of mortgage and secured loan products to individuals and businesses who are typically underserved by mainstream lenders. Despite being one of the UK’s leading specialist lenders, Together have low brand awareness; in fact, the specialist lending sector as a whole has very low awareness.

Celebrating their 50th anniversary, Together saw an opportunity to celebrate this milestone by raising awareness of their brand.  They briefed us to plan a media campaign which would position Together as authentic and people-focused, while building an emotional connection with their key audiences.  Their objective was to gain trust and credibility, and ultimately to increase brand awareness of Together for those in need of specialist finance.  YouGov were used to track campaign performance.

Target Audience

Together have 2 key audiences: Commercial (B2B) and Personal (B2C).

Their Commercial audience are corporate and professional customers who may require bridging loans, auction finance, buy to let mortgages or commercial property finance.

Their Personal audience are those who require a mortgage, but they may not be accepted from mainstream lenders as they have complex or non-standard income streams, e.g. those self-employed.

Our Approach

As Together offer specialist lending rather than high-street lending we took a data centric approach to our planning.  We separated Commercial and Personal audiences in terms of media targeting and creative assets, to ensure we reached the right people with the right message for their finance needs.

We identified various 3rd party data sources suitable to tightly target our audiences, with Experian Financial Strategy Segments forming the backbone of our above-the-line planning.

The integrated multi-media campaign was planned across BVOD, digital video, paid social and contextually relevant property and trade channels, to drive both reach and frequency whilst maintaining cost efficiency with highly targeted audiences.

It was important for Together to build trust and credibility with their audiences via an emotional connection, so we recommended that video creative be central to the campaign for visual storytelling. TV ads were produced for each audience which was targeted to relevant audiences across Sky and ITV VOD.

We negotiated a partnership with Property TV (Sky 186) which included broadcast interviews with Together personnel as well as a spot campaign of the Commercial TV creative.

Bespoke in-market segments were created to deliver a highly targeted YouTube campaign, pre-dominantly on big screens achieving high volumes of cost-efficient impressions. Paid social campaigns were booked across Meta and LinkedIn targeting by interests and job functions, utilising multiple formats.  We managed continual copy refresh, optimising to the most highly engaged ads.

Digital banner ads on property sites including Right Move were targeted to when people were searching for suitable properties to buy. Digital and print ads on trade property publications ensured we were visible in a highly relevant B2B context.

We supported the campaign with always on PPC and programmatic retargeting to capture brand interest generated by the campaign. Our team supported a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) of all activity alongside Together‘s in-house marketing dept to ensure compliance.

The Results

Using YouGov brand tracking pre and post campaign, Together saw a significant uplift in unprompted brand awareness (+250%) and brand preference (+300%). Prompted brand awareness (+80%) and brand consideration (+86%) also increased post campaign.

Data showed positive responses on key metrics, with Together being ranked first against competitors for ‘building relationships with customers’ – this was an important objective for brand perception and values.

Web traffic saw the highest YoY increase at campaign launch, and branded search volumes saw a significant increase period on period.