The Brief:
Currency Partners, an independent foreign exchange provider, wanted to build a presence in the local Forex market and drive viable leads to its website. While BrandBrew handled the client’s strategy and overall direction, and iClick Marketing the Google Search & Display, we were retained to create an integrated media campaign that put Currency Partners on the radar of the local financial community and assisted in driving traffic to its site.
Our Approach:
In the absence of a new product or launch, to generate credible editorial that elevated the Currency Partners brand – without being overly promotional – we needed a solid news ‘hook’ that would interest the media, work as a campaign across channel and associate Currency Partners with it in a relevant way.
Our solution lay in the time of year in which we were to launch: the end of 2016 when the annual R1-million FX allowance cut-off occurs.
In the 12 months prior to the launch of our campaign the Rand rallied against tumultuous political and economic events including Nenegate, Zuma’s Nkandla ‘Pay back the money’ scandal, Brexit, our local elections, the release of the much anticipated State Capture Report and the surprise US election win. This provided so many opportunities to capitalise on and demonstrate the ZAR’s rollercoaster ride – and resilience – against the USD, while also positioning Currency Partners as a thought leader around each key event. It also allowed us to stress the message that when transferring funds offshore it is better to wait and avoid a knee-jerk reaction, despite what might be going on in the markets.
Knowing that the media enjoy a good “Year in Review” story in December we packaged seven key economic and political events into a series of comments, infographic cutaways that featured headlining leaders and ladies from Trump to Thuli, a “Think long-term if going offshore” opinion piece as well as a 2016: The ZAR in Review visual. This was pitched in from end November and secured a significant amount of interest.
To present an integrated message, we also packaged the content up into a punchy blog post that was published on Currency Partners’ website, social media campaign and shared a ZAR in Review newsletter with its database.
Results:
Focusing exclusively on print and online, as the client was not in favour of broadcast, 21 pieces of free exposure was secured during December 2016 with 17 brand or website mentions. Among this was a leading story on Fin24, Businesslive, Sake24, Biznews, City Press and Business Report. Our content was also picked up by Biznews who used it in its own 2016 financial analyses, while @CurrencyPartner got the credit.
As our efforts were implemented to help drive interest in Currency Partners and traffic to its site, there was also a noticeable spike during the campaign period, albeit off a very low base. It also introduced an unknown brand into the mainstream financial media and raised its profile among the business community as well as provided its database and social community with valuable and timely information.