Mumbai: BBC StoryWorks has hosted an insightful event with the theme “Pulse of Storytelling”, held on 11 October 2023.

The objective of this campaign done by BBC StoryWorks was to position HSBC as a forerunner in providing help to those moving to the UK or Canada. Using impactful and innovative infographics, ‘The New Beginning’ addressed key aspects pertaining to relocating abroad.

In a highly competitive market today, it's important to provide real value insights and a meaningful perspective across to the audiences, especially when they have your attention. Mining those insights, forming that narrative and choosing a credible brand safe environment to push your message is becoming imperative for advertising and content marketing endeavors. One brand that strongly focuses on the audience and market insights is HSBC.

When BBC StoryWorks first interacted with HSBC, they realised this is a brand with an appetite for risk. They trusted them with the task of taking their insights to the next level, and presenting it in a brand safe environment. It had to be something which was comprehensive, but not preachy, it has to be eye catching and tasteful for the digital audience

Given that the campaign was launched during COVID and India was under lockdown, the infographic had received over 42,000 page views with an excellent dwell time of 67.4 seconds. They conducted an online global survey and we saw that 97 per cent of the respondents actually agreed that BBC was the right place for HSBC to advertise. They also saw that the positivity towards the brand experienced an uplift of 14 per cent of brands that already had a positive approach, they still received a 14 per cent uplift specifically amongst the BBC consumers. And that was only because it was evident that being brave at a time where all brands were being very conservative with their messaging really paid off.

BBC Story Works content strategist- Asia-Pacific Ankita Bakshi, in conversation with HSBC India head of customer propositions digital and marketing for wealth and personal banking  Jaswinder Sodhi.

Edited excerpts

Ankita: We're going to begin with a question which is actually on top of everybody's mind because we have the Cricket World Cup on. Tell us a little about your role in the India campaign. I have seen your LinkedIn posts and there are some very fun creatives around we do see Virat Kohli as well in the picture. So, what was the brand's vision here for this campaign, and also engaging with Virat Kohli, specifically, from a point of view that he is a known face? He is associated with a lot of other brands. So why him? And what's the thought behind your campaign?

Sodhi: So, there'll be a slightly longish answer to this, whatever we are doing there is a knitted story. Today's topic suggests that it is a storytelling about our story moving across years. The brand revival of HSBC started probably two to three years back when we first did our campaign called India Beyond Boundaries. We have always been a great international bank, connecting boundaries, and making the world borderless. That was the time when did that campaign to clearly say that, there is a borderless world if you work and bank with us. Having said that, having established what we do internationally, there was also a very strong domestic business we used to run and we continue to run, we are a very strong corporate bank. We've been in India for almost 170 years there. So there is legacy. There are experiences and customers. So we said why not bring that out? Why not talk about it? But at the same time, why don't we also say that we are preparing for the future? So, the whole idea was that we are strongly domestically rooted and at the same time, we are strongly globally connected and we wanted to bring this out. That's where many of you would have seen our campaign with a tiger, walking across the hexagon, which is our brand logo. We had put this up in Asia's largest hoarding at Bandra. It also ran in many other media and the headline was ‘Roaring with national pride, soaring with global dream’. It summarized our intent of being very proud of our legacy, but at the same time, also very proud of what we have done in India. So the roar comes from there, and the roar continues. There's a cricket season and we know Virat roars. The story of Virat I will come to but clearly, we believe that 1.21 - 3 billion Indians roaring is the biggest cheer we can provide to our team. It's topical, it's content-heavy at this point in time. So, the role of the campaign is basically to kind of echo the sentiments of, all our Indians at this point in time and we want to participate and it's an embodiment of that. Coming to Virat I think clearly, he is an iconic cricketer, a great human being and has been with the Indian team for such a long time serving the Indian cricket. So, when we were looking at people who can represent us, there were a few qualities we were looking at. They were the values and purpose and we could find a great fit with Virat. His passion, dedication, discipline and willingness to succeed. Look in the face be bold. All those qualities we found truly mesmerizing, and as a brand at some point in time we want to run head-to-head with it. I think he was truly the icon we wanted and that's where we had him on board. We exactly thought of what's the story because he's representing more than 60 brands, and each of those brands has had their narratives out in the market. So which side of Virat do we bring out? That's where we thought that there are two common things. We chatted with him; we understood his mindset. There was one thing which came out in common. Every match, the score starts from zero for him, right? So while he might have won countless matches, numerous man of the matches and many trophies are in his cabinet. But at the end of it, whenever he steps onto the field, it's always, zero from where he starts his score. We could resonate that very well. We said that while we are 170 years old, we have the experience and global connectivity. But for our customers, and stakeholders, we want to wipe our record clean, we want to start fresh, and we want to embody that spirit of looking at every day as a fresh start. So that we bring that enthusiasm and energy to our engagements. So that's where the campaign came out. It was a nice film. It spoke about how he looks at this. And it ended with a very subtle communication talking about my account starts today. So that's where Virat came into the picture. Now having Virat and not having him on the cricket creative is not fair, so he's there and part of the fun now. So overall, it's a great marriage of a person, having a purpose and values, which I think the two iconic brands represent.

Ankita: That's actually fantastic. I'm going to lead my next question with the same thought given that Virat Kohli is actually an icon. But brands are actually collaborating with social media influencers in today's day, and it's something to pick on Shailaja and Raul said in their previous chat as well, how are you as a brand bringing credibility? And when we're talking about social media? How do you feel the industry is actually going beyond moment marketing? We've seen a lot of that, but how are we bringing that credibility and moving from the moment marketing aspect to bigger campaigns and to bigger thought?

Sodhi: It is an interesting question; social media has obviously gained prominence. Over the last few years, we have believed social media is a great storytelling platform, there are multiple platforms within social media, Facebook, Twitter now X and LinkedIn, and each one of them have a different audience, and different form of content, which people like. So, for us, when we started, two to three years back, we launched YouTube and Instagram in the midst of a pandemic. We wanted for the first two years, our channels, only to run our brand, vision, purpose and values. I see a lot of effort today to monetize it from day one, or day zero. The customers actually want to hear and connect with your brand. These fantastic platforms provide a great opportunity for storytelling. That's where I believe social media, if handled in a nice way, can connect very positively with the customers. For us, while we have done that, for the first two years, we are now migrating to more product-centric, Proposition-centric communication. But at the same time, for some of the big messages, like Pride Month we run major campaigns every year and the Virat film when it was launched, it was on Instagram. So social media, of course, has its own pitfalls as well, if I may use that word. We have influencers, a lot has been written about the community, and it's a matter of debate, which we don't want to get into. But as a responsible brand, I would suggest that the whole or I would say a great bit of responsibility is on the brands as well. The ones whom you partner with, the ones whom you choose, represent you, your values and purpose. So, I don't think the selections should be made based on the number of followers. It should not be based on how much virality they bring to the table, but I think it should be based on how they help you connect with the audience whom you have seen, with or you want to target. So that's where I think, our responsibility towards selecting is as important as how responsible they are in terms of what they talk about. Because that's where the authenticity part comes in. And, people are very clearly able to see that, and another aspect, which I believe is that even without a brand, does the influencer live the values for which the brand stands for, that's another metric you can look at. So, we are not very, I would say, aggressive about it. We are careful, we progress with a lot of caution and care. But at the same time, we do acknowledge that it's a great community because it helps us to connect with lots of people. But I think we all need to tread with a lot of responsibility and care both towards our brand as well as for our customers.

Ankita: Actually, that's great, because I think, personally and even with StoryWorks, we also believe that it's always the quality of content over the number of followers a person has, because it's that quality, that's going to matter, that's going to connect with the audiences. And that's where we bring in the authenticity of actual storytelling. So, I think that's, fantastic to know. Now, just going back to the pandemic, what actually made HSBC choose content, like the way they did with StoryWorks, instead of the traditional means to reach your audiences, because a lot of brands were pulling out from doing content at that point in time. And we're focusing more on performance, we're focusing more on just being present. So, what made HSBC actually choose a content route?

Sodhi: See, the pandemic was a great teacher, I would put it that way, it accelerated our learning about lots of things. It made us sit back and kind of look internally as to who we are, and what we stand for. One very interesting piece came out of the research that we did during this, and believe me, every consultancy came and pitched saying what your customers are thinking right now. But I think clearly what we realised that customers want to hear from big brands, during the pandemic or such in times of great despair. They want the big brands to stand up and talk. They don't want people to shy away. That was a clear message, we heard from our customers. So, we took that challenge, and they were different phases of the pandemic, if I may put it that way. In the initial phase, it was more about empathy. You need not go and talk and say, I've got five solutions for you. It was only empathy, which was needed in the initial part, followed by a period when people were like, accustomed to what they are supposed to do. I think that's where we started our talk about what we do offer. But at the same time, I think engagement with your audience throughout is the key and you can't shy away. So we used social media to a great benefit. But what we also did at that point in time, there's an interesting entertainment IP we have called HSBC starstruck, which has been in India for the last two to three years. Nobody would believe that it was born out of a pandemic and it was a very interesting genesis, in one of our internal meetings, we have so many celebrities in our customer base. Why don't we get their stories out? It's pandemic time and people want to listen to them. So, we can have a chat show with them every Friday at 5 p.m., we used to get somebody and talk about his life with us on a simple Zoom platform. With no fancy bag around, it was pure content and people loved it. People started waiting every Friday for that one hour and we ran it for almost 28 weeks, it was the longest running for us every week. Finding a celebrity was a task because, by the time the Friday show ended, I had the list for the next week and we had to finalize by Monday. So, it was it was it was, it was like an industry we were running. But that was the kind of engagement, which helped us connect with customers. But indirectly, it created so much content for us, which on YouTube and Instagram had so many views. It started trending over a period of time, as the pandemic has come to an end, we have transformed that format into a physical format, where people have started enjoying it, and it has become a major IP for us. So, the learning is big brands don't need to shy away, they need to be there when the customers want them. Be engaged and create lots of content. That's where people want to be there.

Ankita: That's actually brilliant and touching on what you said that content became, simply because everything was done over zoom calls, there were no camera crews actually going in and shooting. So, there was a change in strategy and want to understand, what has been a complete shift in thought process ever since we kind of overcame the pandemic or, because we do see there are brands that are still struggling, they're still trying to figure it out and get their hands back into the content game. So what's your take on that?

Sodhi: The closer you are to the customer, you will understand what they want, clearly and life after the pandemic, the world has resumed more experiential marketing, or experiences. Everybody's taking a holiday, everybody wants to meet lots of people socially, and they want to engage in forums. We realised that right, so we clearly moved on to that zone where we had a lot of physical engagement and that's continuing, as of now. But I think the bigger change, which has happened is a lot of people are still stuck on digital. A lot of people have moved on to physical depending upon their personality, and as a result, each of the brands has to have a strategy, which is digital as well as physical. Prior to that, it was either digital or physical, it has to be a mix. That's where you need to understand which audience wants what and that is a big change. Second, I think the experiences, the domain you choose is again, a function of the platform you are in. Third, a lot of our customers are still operating from home. It's a hybrid working model which the world has settled into. It has its own set of challenges; we have to address all of that. Some of the basic behaviours haven't changed and the human being is a social animal. So, we want to interact a lot, especially with Indians, we give them what they want. But at the same time, I think some of the digital stuff still continues. So it's evolving over a period of time.

Ankita: I think that's true; it is evolving. This is a question that I am always very, very curious to know. How do you measure the success of any content Lead Campaign? Because a lot of people focus only on the quantitative data in terms of what are the pageviews? How many people did it reach? Or what is the focus more towards the qualitative aspect of it on the emotional aspect of it? How well it resonated with the audience. So what's your take on that?

Sodhi: It's a difficult one. It's not easy to kind of say no to performance numbers, because that's what every management wants to hear. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we are in a world which is still commercial. So, all our good leads have to have a commercial outcome. But at the same time, I think what we do is measure engagement in two forms. One does not only like but also the kind of time people have spent on our channels. That's a good measure. We also do a lot of qualitative research, and surveys and talk with our customers and understand what they like about us. So, it's a hybrid of measurement, performance, numbers etc to tell a story. But some of those metrics have also evolved over a period of time, talk as engagement, the quality of engagement, etc. So, I think we need to really respect both how much time the customers are giving you and how much time you are investing in the quality of content you're producing. So, if we do some kind of compromise on one, the other suffers, so you don't have to miss out on the basic lessons but keep at it.
Ankita: Thank you so much. I think this is a very interesting topic, and we're going to continue this conversation in the next session. But thank you so much Jaswinder Singh Sodhi it was a very insightful session.