Influencer BrandLift Study: Influencers increase awareness of Kwitt by 27 percent
A money-sending function is boring? The Kwitt smartphone payment solution in the VR banking app of the Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken proves otherwise. With it, users can easily transfer money to their friends. The Federal Association of German Cooperative Banks (Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken BVR) launched an influencer marketing campaign on behalf of its member banks from August to November 2018 to raise awareness of Kwitt as a service offered by the Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken. The second objective: to activate customers to use the money-sending function in the VR banking app. The Kwitt campaign reached a total of around 61 million contacts with 110 influencers. Two factors in particular contributed to the success: The “Challenge and Charity” concept and the right influencers. The campaign was created on behalf of BVR in collaboration with geno kom, Kontor Digital Media (KDM), Heimatand Lucky Shareman. The sustainable research approach of the market research company GreenAdz accompanied the campaign to prove the advertising impact.
The goal of the campaign: more awareness and engagement
Lucky Shareman selected appropriate micro, mid and macro influencers for the campaign who brought reaches of up to 2.5 million followers and published a total of 376 posts on Instagram, YouTube, Twitch and their blogs.
Challenge and Charity – entertainment with social commitment
In addition to classic product promotion for Kwitt, the influencers relied on a combination of challenges and charity campaigns to activate their followers. They proceeded in two steps: First, they explained the Kwitt function on their channel and announced a challenge; in the second step, they promoted their attention-grabbing challenge. To encourage the community to use the Kwitt function to donate small amounts of money to a special cell phone number, followers were allowed to set challenges for the influencers, which became more difficult the higher the donation. The money donated went entirely to one of 80 foundations and organizations that the influencer had previously selected – from Kindernothilfe to animal welfare. The influencers took on a lot for their fundraising campaign and showed humor, courage and perseverance. Flo (@flowesterm) was soaked by a load of water bombs, Joey from Joey’s Jungle ran through a field of stinging nettles barely clothed, and Florian and Kay (@flow_bu and @schmale_schulter) took on a total of seven challenges.
A viral hit
In the process, 110 posts by influencers on Instagram reached over 11.2 million contacts and generated around 523,000 interactions – an interaction rate of 4.7 percent. 207 Instagram stories generated 27.4 million contacts. On YouTube, the influencers published 39 videos that reached nearly 22 million views and inspired around 289,000 interactions.
The emotional posts ensured a positive image transfer to the Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken’s P2P payment function Kwitt and made the campaign a viral hit – unusual for a service offered by a financial services provider. How the positive image transfer can be expressed in figures is shown in the advertising impact study accompanying the campaign by the market research company GreenAdz:
Advertising impact of influencer marketing campaigns proven with market research
At BVR’s request, the campaign was additionally accompanied by market research to prove the advertising impact of the campaign. Björn Wenzel, Managing Director of Lucky Shareman, says:
„Professional influencer marketing must be able to prove its advertising impact. Together with the market research company GreenAdz, we have therefore developed a solution for campaign-accompanying market research that not only relies on clicks and reach, but also on surveys.“
The followers of the participating influencers were invited to take part in a survey before and after the campaign. Brand awareness, likeability, brand and product perception, and activation in the relevant target groups were surveyed. The results: The target group fit of the campaign was around 80 percent, brand awareness of Kwitt increased by 27 percent among the followers of the influencers involved, and brand knowledge also grew: At the end of the campaign, around six times as many users as before the campaign assigned the Kwitt function to the Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken.
Zuordnung der Kwitt-Funktion zu den Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken gestiegen: Die Kwitt-Funktion wurde zu Beginn der Kampagen von vier Prozent der Befragten den Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken zugeordnet. Nach der Kampagne waren es 23 Prozent.
Die Bekanntheit der Kwitt-Funktion legte durch die Influencer-Marketing-Kampagne von 38 auf 48 Prozent zu. Bei der VR-BankingApp stieg sie von 34 auf 45 Prozent.
On the importance of liking and brand sympathy, Sandra Gärtner, founder and CEO of GreenAdz, explains:
„The Liking value tells how much the recipients like a campaign. The average Liking value of a display campaign is 40 percent. Influencers scored 52 percent, and user comments were extremely positive. Many users and influencers continued to post the campaigns and spread the messages virally.“
The invitations to the follower surveys were also so successful because GreenAdz donates a tree to an environmental protection organization for each participation with “market research that plants trees” – in total, there were 2,845 trees in this survey..
Influencer marketing also works for financial products that require explanation
Compared to the previous quarter, new Kwitt registrations increased by 21 percent and payments with Kwitt by 27 percent in the campaign period from August to November. Stephan Arns, Brand Communications Officer and responsible for media planning at BVR, comments, “The current campaign for the money-sending function Kwitt shows that influencer marketing can also work for financial products that require explanation and can have a positive effect on brand perception.” Marika Koch, responsible for brand communication on payment products at BVR, adds: “With this campaign, we were obviously also able to encourage the target group to try out the Kwitt function in the VR Banking app.”
Brand Lift studies help to understand the mechanisms of influencer marketing
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Best regards,
Sandra Gärtner
About the author:
Dr. Sandra Gärtner is co-founder of the market research and technology service provider GreenAdz and, with mediaresearch42, an independent market research consultant with a passion and a green soul from Hamburg. Green, because GreenAdz stands for “market research that plants trees” and is also referred to as “Viva con Agua for market research” by respondents.
About Lucky Shareman
With over 200 successful campaigns and more than 60 satisfied clients, Lucky Shareman is the leading specialist for sustainable influencer marketing. The agency manages influencer campaigns for brands such as Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken, Sennheiser, Philips, Sinalco, Nokia Health, Vorwerk and Trigema. Lucky Shareman’s specialists design individual influencer strategies and integrate them effectively into brands’ media mix to increase brand awareness and achieve sales targets. For this purpose, Lucky Shareman selects influencers on an independent basis who are a perfect fit and have an affinity with the brand. One of the core competencies of the specialized agency is market research that accompanies the campaign and makes influencer marketing campaigns intermedially measurable and comparable. www.luckyshareman.com