2014 Gold Best Use of Email Marketing

Client Barclays

How did the campaign make a difference? In a world where customers’ inboxes are bombarded with a relentless onslaught of generic, one-size-fits-all loan offers, Barclays has a point of difference – they are able to tell their customers exactly how much they could borrow before they apply.

They sent every customer a unique video tailored with the information they’d need to know about taking out a loan – especially their personal lending limit.

The project was one of the first to develop and execute a campaign featuring personalised video on such a scale in UK financial services. Over 40,000 variable data points were used to make a communication that was fully realised creatively: using an individual’s information to dramatize the product benefits.

Strategy Emails sent to customers about loans typically feature only limited personalisation. Just using the word ‘loan’ often disengages those who aren’t immediately looking to borrow, while legal requirements can make emails long and complex – a vicious circle.

By giving customers all the personally relevant information they needed to make an informed decision, in a format that was engaging and easy to digest, Barclays could take the pain out of the loan consideration process.

Telling customers how much they can borrow removes the fear of rejection when considering applying for one. But few customers knew Barclays could do this and customers with no immediate borrowing needs had very little reason to open a generic lending email.

The strategy included engaging not just those in the market for a loan right now, but also put Barclays front of mind for those might want to borrow in the future.

Creativity Barclays used the key data sets for personal loan communications (a customer’s name, the amount they could borrow, their interest rate and their term length) – 40,000 variables in total – to stitch together bespoke videos for each customer.

180,000 videos were developed in total, each tied in to an individual email address for distribution. The rest of the email was used to show the customer that the loan and video were personal to them.

The final film demonstrated the three key reasons people typically want a loan: buying a car, debt consolidation and home improvements. The customer’s name was then integrated into various different scenes – such as a car number plate, or signage on a house – and used in the voiceover.

Customer data was even used to change the way the personalised voice narration addressed certain sets of customers – for example, addressing those over 50 using their title and surname and those under 50 just by their first name.

Results The project was revelatory for Barclays – the first time they had combined insight, data and video technology to achieve this level of personalisation for their customers.

In the finance sector, this was a real breakthrough in personalising communications – with impressive engagement results.

Since the launch of the campaign in 493 Barclayloans taken out by customers have been directly attributable to the campaign.

The videos have proven a really compelling way to engage and educate customers about the personal lending amounts available to them, leading Barclays to consider how to use more personalised videos to enhance future communications.