Citibank HK's ad with Leon Lai strikes a cord with target audience luring 39% growth

Brands today have to leverage data to better understand their customers and Citibank Hong Kong is no exception. In a recent campaign featuring singer Leon Lai, the bank not only targeted the affluent and high-net-worth segments, but also curated the campaign based on extensive study in their audiences and customers. The campaign's concept "There's more to wealth" in response to customers' feedback, explained Angela Shing (pictiured) , head of digital sales and marketing at Citibank Hong Kong.  

"Our customers value wealth beyond monetary value, and they define wealth as personal aspiration. Some treasure quality time spent with their family, some pursue their passions and dreams, while others start their own business to demonstrate their competence and achievement. As a corporation that values customers’ insights, we articulated the findings and had come up with this new campaign concept," said Shing.

When asked by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE why Citibank Hong Kong chose singer Lai as its ambassador, Shing said, "The majority of our core customers are parents aged over 35 and 45 for Citigold and Citigold Private Client respectively. Lai was their hero when they were young and he has remained a very positive and aspirational image in their minds over the years."

She added that Lai is very familiar to most of Citibank Hong Kong's target customers. "Furthermore, Lai became a father a few years ago and has shifted his attention and time to his family and daughter. He is highly aligned to our consumer insights that wealth is not just about monetary value, but also the time spent with their loved ones," she added.

Through the campaign, the bank also brought aspects of Lai's real life to the audience. A series of online to offline video content was developed to share the activities that Leon undertook and the attractions he explored, and this helped drive engagement with the bank's customers.

"His profile and aspirations resonate well with our campaign communication, which paves the way for him to be our campaign endorser. With Lai’s authentic story sharing and his extensive experience in video production, he was highly involved in the execution of our video, and he even co-created the scripts with us, sharing his personal insights and thoughts on managing finance," Shing said.

The campaign included both online and offline touchpoints as the bank's target audience, namely young and middle-aged multimillionaires, embraced digital lifestyle. Around two-third of multimillionaires exhibited regular digital habits in at least four out of five domains of everyday life, including digital lifestyle, digital payment, digital banking and investment, digital entertainment and health, as well as networking via social media.

To accommodate the digital trend, Citibank Hong Kong adopted a digital-first and social media domination strategy across the campaign. In the online video series, Citibank Hong Kong explored adventurous outdoor activities that its customers enjoy such as fly fishing and glamping to bring out its product value proposition for higher relevance. In addition, the bank also launched an online game on social media that helped its branch staff kick-off a conversation with potential customers for opening an account.

As part of the campaign, Lai also created a theme song for the campaign. During his concerts in July, Lai even performed the theme song as a little surprise to further enhance the campaign's awareness. Other offline touchpoints of the campaign included OOH ads in major business districts and high-end shopping areas to cater to the affluent segments' lifestyle. Moreover, ongoing taxi ads were used to sustain exposure in these areas.

Speaking of the results of the campaign, Shing said the bank had overachieved business targets. The number of daily average of new-to-bank customers increased by 39% compared to the pre-campaign period. Also, the growth of Citigold and Citigold Private Client customers exceeded 2.7% compared to projection.

Looking ahead, Shing said the Citibank Hong Kong will continue to reinforce its strong value proposition in the market and conduct market research to get customer feedback and insights for a more campaign formulation which will help it to further resonate.

When it comes to its business, Citibank Hong Kong regards Hong Kong a key market for its regional wealth ambition and plans to grow client asset-under-management (AUM) by US$150 billion by 2025 from the current level of US$310 billion. The city is also one of of the key areas that the bank hopes to grow in addition to Singapore, the UAE and London.

"As the market leader, we have been gaining insights into the increasing potential for, and expansion in the high-net-worth segment through our industry-renowned annual Hong Kong Affluent Study. We needed a breakthrough in communicating Citi’s strong total wealth management solution by introducing customers to our best-in-class segment service and products," Shing added.

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