Open Up 2020: Running a campaign to drive adoption of open banking in the UK

Running a campaign to drive adoption of open banking in the UK Campaign Report | December 2020

1

This report

How do you increase adoption of something people don’t quite understand? A piece of technology that to many sounds complicated or raises concerns?

In 2020, open banking is a huge driver of innovation in the financial services sector, but consumer adoption is still slow. This report covers learnings from a nearly year-long digital campaign to understand what makes consumers aware, interested and engaged. You can read the campaign takeaways, including how to communicate open banking, what messages work, who are the right audiences and how to reach them.

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Contents Executive Summary

4

1.

The Challenge 1.1. Open banking today and where it’s headed 1.2. Open Up 2020: the challenge that set out to unlock the power of open banking to consumers

9 10 13

2.

The Campaign 2.1. A nationwide digital campaign: introducing innovation to consumers 2.2. Results: what did the campaign achieve?

15 16 19

3.

How to communicate open banking Learnings for open banking professionals

24

4.

How to drive adoption of open banking Learnings for fintechs and the wider open banking industry

38

5.

How to run campaigns to promote open banking products Learnings for fintechs looking to improve their marketing campaigns

50

Appendix

63

33

Executive Summary Key results, takeaways and learnings from the campaign

44

Exec Summary

The campaign was hugely impactful for both driving adoption of the products, as well as increasing awareness and trust amongst consumers Primary objective

Secondary objective

AWARENESS, TRUST AND LIKELIHOOD TO ADOPT OPEN BANKING

CONSUMER ADOPTION OF THE 15 PRODUCTS

23K

Which depending on the finalist’s specific journey, ranged from downloading an app, signing-up via email, requesting a card, etc.

Leads

351K

Building a large pool of engaged users that can be re-targeted by the finalists to drive further adoption

7.7M Reach on Facebook and Instagram

Of those who clicked, 17.5% converted to a lead, verus the financial industry standard at 9%*

Conversion rate

36%

The ad campaign was displayed 81.6 million times across the UK, with over 180 advert variations.

Ad impressions

Clicks to websites

17.5%

81.6M

530 Pieces of press coverage

All of which achieved at a cost per acquisition which is 36% cheaper than the industry standard*

Cheaper cost per acquisition than industry standard.

12%

The campaign reached 7.7 million UK consumers via Facebook & Instagram; at least 11.5% of the country’s population saw the campaign.

Over 530 pieces of press coverage were generated through the campaign, with 388 in consumer titles - with highlights including Forbes, Which?, The Sunday Times. It’s estimated that the press coverage reached 2.78 million people in the UK - with a circulation of 6.9 million.

Based on a post campaign evaluation survey an estimated 12% of the UK recalled seeing the campaign.1

Of people in the UK recalled seeing the campaign.

People exposed to the campaign had / were....

3x 1 Opinium, on behalf of Nesta Challenges, interviewed 2,000 UK adults between 22 and 24 September 2020. Data has been weighted to nationally representative standards.

higher awareness of open banking1

2.6x more likely to trust it

2x 1

more likely to adopt1

5

Exec Summary

The key strategic principles that enabled the effectiveness of the campaign (and how other campaigns can adopt these, too)

1

2

3

Adopt a data-driven test & learn approach to everything you do: from creative, to messaging and audiences.

Ensure a holistic and integrated campaign approach where different strands complement each other

A multilayered approach to audiences to reach a diverse range of people

The only way to combat consumer fatigue, and to give a brand new campaign entity a chance to win their trust, is through a rigorous test & learn approach. Being driven by audience behaviour will secure the best results and allow you to spend your budget wisely.

Having two key objectives adoption and awareness - as well as 15 different products didn’t mean running 30+ different campaigns.

To achieve most impact, ensure different campaign strands are designed in a phased way where they can support each other.

Audience segmentation in Financial Services has historically bucketed people in demographic clusters, limiting the potential of these services and products to reach people who may benefit from them.

Taking a multilayered approach - where demographic, behavioural and attitudinal segments are considered is a better way to reach consumers.

More on this on p. 46-49 & 56 ➜

More on this on p. 40 ➜

66

Exec Summary

Key learnings: how to communicate open banking

“Open banking”

Confidence & empower ment

Using the term “open banking” doesn’t turn consumers off and can be used in communications that are designed to raise awareness of the service as long as it’s contextualised in a jargon-free way. (p.26)

Customers respond well to messages that makes them feel confident and in control of their money.

Use an empowering tone, and focus your message on being personalised and relevant to the consumer benefits. (p.28)

But when promoting products and looking to drive adoption, it’s the product benefits that are important to emphasise, not the fact that it’s open banking.

Message framings that worked

.. didn’t work as well

EMPOWERMENT

FINANCIAL HEALTH

e.g “Take charge.”, “Feel in control”

e.g “Clear your mind”

MISSING OUT (LOSS)

BENEFITS (GAIN)

e.g “Don’t miss out.

Make your money go further”

e.g “Spend less time managing your money”

Innovation & personalisation

When explaining what open banking is, focus your message on the innovation aspect and be personalised and relevant for the consumer benefits that it enables. (p.36)

“...technology designed for the modern 'mobile world”

Credibility & security

Build trust by mentioning how open banking is governed, FCA regulation and the fact that it’s used by UK’s largest banks already. When talking about security, customers want to see evidence and proof points. (p.30)

“developed by the UK’s largest banks”

“..allows people to get personalised, tailored information “

“ this technology will soon underpin all major UK financial institutions “

“...regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and European equivalents.”

77

Exec Summary

Key learnings: how to drive adoption of open banking

Help people plan for their future

Products with propositions that appealed the most to customers were those that focused on planning for their future. Particularly during COVID-19 such positioning are likely to feel most relevant to them (p.43)

Social proof messaging

To drive direct action from consumers, the message framings that worked best were social proof (offering validation that these products are used by many) and piquing consumers’ interest by starting with a question or showing the brand first (p.44)

Surprising audiences

While traditionally excluded from fintech campaigns, older security conscious audiences as well as financially vulnerable and struggling audiences showed a high level of engagement and shouldn’t be ignored (p.46,49)

Most likely to adopt

However, it was the younger audiences as well as existing website visitors that showed the highest propensity to adopt, and should remain a priority segment when looking to achieve adoption targets while other audiences are nurtured through the funnel (p.48)

Plan the future

for

15.5% adoption rate

Boost resilience

your

13.9%

0.9%

adoption rate

adoption rate

Message framings that worked SOCIAL PROOF e.g using testimonies or user stats

STARTING WITH THE BRAND OR A QUESTION

FINANCIALLY VULNERABLE

Support others

.. didn’t work as well FUTURE SELF STARTING WITH THE SOLUTION USING IDENTITY USING ANALOGIES

FINANCIALLY STRUGGLING

YOUNGER EARLY ADOPTERS

SECURITY CONSCIOUS

WEBSITE VISITORS

88

In this section:

1.1 A bit of context: open banking today and where it’s headed 1.2 Open Up 2020: the campaign that set out to unlock the power of open banking to consumers

1.

The Challenge 99

1.1

A bit of context Open banking today and where it’s headed Over the past decade, personal finance has changed dramatically with the rise of technology available to consumer to manage their money better.

The potential of open banking Recent numbers reported by the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBL) show consumers are recognizing and taking advantage of these benefits. As of 28th September 2020, the number of consumers using open banking-enabled products surpassed “two million” users, having “doubled in the last six months”.

At the heart of this increase has been the uptake in “the use of money management apps” with people being more acutely aware of their finances during the Covid-19 lockdown. Unsurprisingly nearly half of these adoption numbers (45%) are from younger ages groups (25-34 year olds).1 Source OpenBanking.org/two-million

There are now apps that automate personal savings, mortgage coaches to prepare people for their next step, apps that invest money weekly without the added stress, apps that track spending and share advice on when and how to save on bills.

All of these products and services, amongst many others, are possible thanks to the power of open banking.

10 10

1.1

However, consumer apathy & a lack of understanding continue to be common barriers to adoption in this Financial Services sector

Not everyone gets it.

Open banking is not something understood at scale, apathy is common, and often not something people associate with their daily financial habits.

Privacy & security concerns.

From those that do understand it, many have reservations about how their data is being used.

Growing audience divide

There is a growing digital divide between younger, early adopters and older demographic groups, as well as between the financially savvy and the underbanked*.

Quotes based on Twitter social listening analysis of key mentions around the term “open banking�

*Underbanked is a term to describe people who do not have sufficient access to mainstream financial services and products typically offered by retail banks and thus often deprived of banking services such as credit cards or loans.

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1.1

As a topic, open banking is mostly a B2B one, whilst what engages customers are the product benefits As part of the campaign research phase to understand current consumer barriers and perceptions of open banking, the social listening analysis looked at how the public is engaging with the subject, what are key themes that drive interest and what language is being used.

From over 80k Twitter mentions analysed, one thing is clear: the term is overwhelmingly a B2B one. There is no lack of enthusiasm about the innovation in the sector, but it’s mostly coming from fintech professionals and investors, and is driven by key industry events, conferences and product releases. For customers, it’s the product benefits and their relevance to them that drive social conversation and engagement.

*Source: Crimson Hexagon, social listening analysis based on 86k Twitter mentions of all open banking, Nov 17 - Jan 20

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1.2

Open Up 2020 the challenge that set out to unlock the power of open banking to consumers To help solve the challenge of low customer awareness and adoption, in partnership with Open Banking Limited (OBL), Nesta Challenges launched the Open Up 2020 Challenge,designed to unlock the power of open banking for people across the country.

In November 2019, 15 finalists were selected for the challenge. The finalists won a ÂŁ50,000 prize grant as well as non-financial support to accelerate their growth. Over the course of the challenge, supported by OBL and Nesta Challenges, the finalists developed their solutions with non-financial support including marketing strategy , service design, growth strategy, media training and user testing.

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Meet the finalists PLAN FOR THE FUTURE

The money management app that grows your money. Set more money aside, invest in things that matter and reduce those pesky bills. Get started for free in 2 minutes.

Know where you stand with your money. See all of your finances in one place and use market-leading tools to achieve your goals.

Understand how a lender sees you and what you need to do to get the best possible mortgage.

The first travel debit card that connects to your existing bank account, to help you, saving over 85% on charges when abroad.

Helps you set money aside and invest for their future.

An AI assistant which helps Gen Z/ Millennials budget, save and track their spending.

BOOST YOUR RESILIENCE

Helps its members build their credit score and access interest-free loans so they can build a financial safety net.

Lets you track your earnings in real-time, stream your earned wages and save straight from your salary

Aims to make it cheaper, faster, and easier to rent a home.

A digital debt adviser for those struggling financially providing online budgeting, debt advice, flexible repayments and money coaching

An affordable credit subscription service offering small interest free loans for short term credit to help those with limited savings.

SUPPORT OTHERS

Say hello to a simpler way of giving.

With Sustainably it’s never been easier to give to the causes you care about and have a positive impact every day.

A personal finance platform for older or vulnerable people. Kalgera uses neuroscience and AI to detect and predict financial vulnerability to help prevent fraud.

Helps people who need extra help managing their money because of impairments like dementia or mental illness. The app allows them to securely share spending alerts or financial information with someone they trust, typically a carer.

The Google Maps of money, helping customers navigate from borrowing to saving whilst reaching their life goals faster.

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In this section:

2.1 A nationwide digital campaign: introducing innovation to consumers 2.2 Results: what did the campaign achieve?

2.

The Campaign 15 15

2.1

A nationwide campaign Introducing innovation to consumers As part of the Open Up 2020 Challenge, a nationwide multi-channel campaign was designed to help bring the products to consumers in the UK. The goal of the campaign was to demonstrably shift the consumer adoption and public perception of open banking, through Open Up 2020’s 15 finalists and their solutions.

The developed strategy was set to reach a diverse range of audiences - not only focusing on those most likely to use such products - but also more niche audiences like modern workers, or carers of people with cognitive disabilities who may see a lot of benefit in these solutions and may have normally been excluded from such campaigns, targeting only traditional early adopters.

However, this wasn’t just about a marketing campaign; there was an opportunity to impact millions of lives by helping customers in the UK build financial resilience and a better relationship with their money.

But with a newly established brand (Open Up) with no customer awareness, the task to communicate not one but 15 products, was not a simple one.

The approach was to adopt a test & learn mindset, and be as agile and data-driven as possible. The strategic plan was grounded in research and insights with a clear framework for measuring success and outcomes.

This report details what was learned. You can read about the campaign results on p.19 -23, and the learnings gathered along the way that can help you communicate open banking on p.24 - 37.

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2.1 Strategy on a page

VISION

A nationwide campaign that engages the UK public to open up to and adopt open banking powered solutions Secondary Objective

OBJECTIVES

30%

Primary Objective

Building awareness & trust in open banking solutions

Drive consumer adoption of the 15 solutions

INSIGHT-DRIVEN TEST & LEARN APPROACH

HOW

Attitudinal Mindsets

AUDIENCES

STRANDS

CHANNELS

ENABLERS

70%

EARLY ADOPTERS

Financial needs CONVENIENCE SEEKERS

1. MESSAGE REFINEMENT

FACEBOOK

DISENGAGED NEUTRALS

SECURITY CONSCIOUS

ONGOING MESSAGING TESTING & OPTIMISATION

FINANCIALLY STRUGGLING

3. ADOPTION

2. AWARENESS

INSTAGRAM

MODERN WORKING

SAVVY SAVERS

DIGITAL DISPLAY

RETARGETING & LOOKALIKE AUDIENCES

UNTAPPED POTENTIAL

RENTING OR BUYING

FINANCIALLY VULNERABLE

4. RETARGETING

MAINSTREAM PRINT & ONLINE MEDIA (EARNED PR)

PR AMPLIFICATION

PAID PR PARTNERSHIPS (Wired & This is Money)

INFLUENCER PARTNERSHIPS

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS & INFLUENCERS 17 17

2.1

Some of our key tactics

PUBLIC RELATIONS

DIGITAL ADS

TEST & LEARN

Using small-scale live media to test the effectiveness of creative, formats, messaging and channels in reaching our audiences.

Running over 180 variants of adverts, including at least 3 messaging variants for each of the 15 finalists

Running a proactive and reactive press office to build relationships with key journalists and understand press perspectives and take-up.

SCALING WHAT WORKS

Putting more money behind advert variations that work Scaling up focus on best performing finalists, message variants, creatives and channels Building awareness using display to increase engagement on Facebook & Instagram.

Targeting paid partnerships for key articles to land in-depth messaging, using angles and messaging that are working well in ads.

DEVELOPING INSIGHTS

Using ‘control’ variants for messaging to ensure meaningful insights can be understood.

Complementing live media with research to build a deeper understanding of results and findings.

A quick-fire regional focus for paid partnerships to understand impact of PR strand more deeply.

18

2.2

Results

We also achieved coverage in dozens of regional publications across the country, which tend to have far higher levels of trust among readers.

what did the campaign achieve in numbers?

But with the ultimate goal being adoption, it was here where the main focus was set — which proved very successful. Of the people who clicked on the adverts on Facebook (where most ad activity ran), 17.5% adopted. Roughly, that is twice more effective than the standard industry benchmark of 9%2.

The campaign was hugely impactful — with more than 1 in 10 people in the UK seeing the adverts, and an estimated 12% of the UK recalling the ads1 Many of these people saw the content over a sustained period of time, multiple times, with the average person seeing one of the ads seven times: the frequency that platforms such as Facebook outline is ideal in order for adverts to be effective and ultimately be remembered.

It was this mix of awareness and action that really underpinned the success of the activity. Not only was this campaign about driving short-term results, it was about shifting hearts and minds to pave the way for longer-term behavioural shift.

This is why seeing that people exposed to the campaign, were on average 3x more likely to be aware of open banking, 2x more likely to adopt in the future and 2.6x more likely to trust it meant that the campaign has been successful in laying the foundation of that longer-term behavioural change ambition, whilst also generating a wealth of findings to support the sector in how they continue to promote the adoption of open banking.

Of these people, hundreds of thousands clicked on the adverts to visit either the Open Up or finalist’s websites, or mobile environments. Due to a mix of ongoing awareness raising and optimisation, clicks were driven at a rate that was 60% more cost effective than the overall financial industry benchmark 2.

Through PR activity, we achieved ongoing and widespread national coverage of Open Up 2020, the finalists and winners.

We achieved over 530 articles throughout the Challenge, including 388 pieces in consumer publications, including The Times, The Sunday Times, Mirror, I, the Independent and The Sun, with a combined circulation of 944 million online and in print.

1

Source: Opinium Research, N=2,000 UK representative

2

Source: Wordstream Facebook benchmarks

19 19

The Campaign in Numbers The campaign was displayed

and was seen by

an impressive

81.6M

7.7M

11.5%

times | Impressions

people across the UK on Facebook alone | Reach1

of the UK population!

Of the people who saw the ads

This meant that

0.43%

351K

clicked through to the Open Up or finalist websites | CTR

people clicked on the adverts | Link Clicks

The campaign generated

530 pieces of press coverage

With an estimated

Of those who clicked on adoption adverts

17.5% converted to a lead, verus the financial industry standard at 9%2

Paid media and influencer partnerships generated

2.78M online views of people reading about Open Up 2020 and the finalists

75K Page views, with a further 250k people reached via radio.

1 Source: Reach is based on Facebook data only, excluding additional display and PR advertising metrics. It is likely to be even higher.

2 Source: Wordstream Facebook benchmarks

2020

Across the UK, the campaign saw an uplift in customers’ likelihood to adopt open banking solutions as a result of seeing the campaign

People exposed to the campaign N=243

vs

Everyone else N=1,757

3x higher awareness of open banking

2x more likely to adopt

2.6x more likely to trust it

10x more likely to be currently using it 2121 *Based on post-campaign evaluation survey, conducted by Opinium Research, N=2,000 UK representative

In addition, there is an increase in volume of social conversation about the finalists on Twitter

..showing that people are more engaged in talking about the finalists and their products

Before

After

15K

19k

total volume of social mentions of the finalists in the period before Open Up 2020

total volume of social mentions of the finalists in the period during Open Up 2020

21M

24M

total reach of mentions of the finalists in the period before Open Up 2020

total reach of mentions of the finalists in the period during Open Up 2020

8,656

9,151

Unique authors mentioning the finalists in the period before Open Up 2020

Unique authors mentioning the finalists in the period during Open Up 2020

+28% increase in social conversation

+13% increase in reach of social conversation

+6% increase in unique authors talking about the finalists

*Source: Brandwatch Consumer Research, social listening analysis based on global Twitter mentions of either of the 15 finalists. Periods compared: 13.11.2019 - 18.09.2020 vs 06.01.2019 - 12.11.2019

2222

But while engagement with the finalists is trending upwards, the B2B topic of open banking is decreasing over time While there is still a stable volume of conversation about open banking in the UK (~2K average monthly mentions in 2020), unsurprisingly, the public is showing greater engagement with the actual products, enabled by open banking. This raises the question whether the public needs to engage with the concept of open banking, or should the sector instead continue to emphasise on the product benefits which they can relate to more easily?

Open banking mentions in the UK (trendline)

*Source: Brandwatch Consumer Research, date range 18.09.2018 - 18.09.2020

Finalists volume of Twitter mentions

UK open banking volume of Twitter mentions

Finalists overall mentions (trendline)

Sep 18

Dec 18

Feb 19

Apr 19

Jun 19

Aug 19

Oct 19

Nov 19

Jan 20

Mar 20

May 20

Jul 20

Sep 20

23 23 23

In this section:

Learnings for open banking professionals, on how to communicate open banking to consumers

3.How to communicate open banking

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How to communicate open banking?

Messages that build awareness, trust and engagement

An important aspect for this campaign, and for any campaign, is to build a strong foundation of engaged audiences, whose interest is piqued and would be open to consider new products. Within the campaign, a strand was designed to specifically focus on this objective. By spending only 23% of the media budget on it, the campaign was able to achieve three important things:

●

Gather important learnings not only about individual products, but also about what gets audiences with different attitudinal mindsets to consider open banking in general

●

Generate a pool of engaged users, reached by the engagement campaign, that later on served as a crucial audience that was then able to be retargeted and re-engaged with adoption ads

●

Help establish the newly created Open Up brand, with the help of PR and digital media, in order to build awareness and trust amongst consumers

The first step to winning consumers over

In the following section you can read the top 4 learnings for how to build awareness of open banking ➜

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How to communicate open banking?

Right from the start, one challenge was always clear: how do you talk about open banking without saying open banking? The working hypothesis behind this being that more than half of the UK population (51%)1 have never heard the term before, and would therefore require a more intensive awareness exercise to build understanding of what open banking actually is and how it works, something that wasn’t the focus of this campaign. And even for those who did know a fair bit about it, the term was too technical, raised security concerns or simply made consumers uninterested.

It was discovered that the term itself is not a barrier for people to engage, as long as it’s communicated in a jargon-free, relatable way.

Instead of a big launch, the campaign kicked off with a small-scale creative test, putting two different creative directions in front of consumers (see summary of both routes on next page). One led with “open banking”, but the messaging around it was grounded in common feelings consumers have about money management, e.g “Open up and discover that "for once I feel on top of my finances" feeling.”. While the other route, focused on the idea of building a better relationship with your money, won. The results it secured were only marginally better than the open banking route, which was expected to perform a lot worse. This was a surprising learning: consumers don’t turn away the minute you mention open banking, but positive and contextualised messaging around it is key.

1

#1.

You can use the term “open banking”, as long as it’s contextualised and communicated in a relatable way for the consumer

Opinium Research, 09.07- 12.07.19, 2002 Nationally Representative Adults

26 26

How to communicate open banking?

Open Up to Open Banking

The idea behind this route: Open banking is a very inward facing word - which is why people can’t relate to it, trust it or have confidence in it. This route explains the reasons to be confident in and trust open banking products by encouraging people to open up to the benefits that they can bring to their lives.

0.33% Click Through Rate

Build a better relationship with your money

The idea behind this route: The relationship people have with their money is often built upon a lack of confidence to stay on top of money management, filled with anxiety and fears. Open banking allows people to explore and develop new trusting relationships with their money, finding new ways to be confident with their finances.

0.38% Click Through Rate

+15% 27 27

How to communicate open banking?

#2.

Which of the following best describe how you’d like to feel about your money?

Please rank them, placing your top preference first on the list.

“I want to feel in control of my money.” & “I want to feel smart about how I manage my money.”

Use an empowering tone that makes consumers feel confident and positive

ranked highest Low rank

High rank Weighted Average

CONFIDENCE

TRUST

PEACE OF MIND

When looking to engage consumers with an awareness building campaign about the power of open banking, instilling a sense of confidence is key. Before going live with any campaign messaging, 3 campaign territories were tested with consumers to validate which route would resonate best - building a sense of confidence, focusing on trust or giving consumers a peace of mind to ease their financial anxiety. The results were clear - empowering language that made people feel in control and on top of their finances resonated best. This was further manifested in the first live messaging test in Facebook (see results on next page) which saw the empowerment framing to outperform 5 other framings informed by different hypotheses.

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How to communicate open banking?

Message framings ...that didn’t work as well

that worked

EMPOWERMENT 0.62% CTR

e.g “Take charge. Become your own financial expert”

MISSING OUT (LOSS FRAME) 0.57% CTR

FINANCIAL HEALTH 0.54% CTR

e.g “Don’t miss out. Make your money go further” “Don’t lose out. Find ways of making your money work harder”

e.g “Clear your mind. Manage your money without the worry” “Forget your stress. With better money management”

PRIVACY 0.57% CTR

BENEFITS (GAIN FRAME) 0.50% CTR

e.g “Safety first. Discover the world of secure open banking” “Stay connected. With safe, secure banking solutions”

e.g “Make time. Spend less time managing your money” “Easy going. Discover simpler money management”

TECHNOLOGY 0.57% CTR 1

e.g “Always on. 24/7 financial expertise at your fingertips.”

“Get personal. Financial solutions tailored to you”

Based on confidence intervals, we can be >95% confident that empowerment had a higher ctr than generic, benefit, and financial health. However, we should note that because Facebook’s custom algorithm and optimisation, these audiences were likely not 100% balanced.

29 29

How to communicate open banking?

Further to using an empowering tone of voice, the ambition was to understand exactly what messaging helps communicate the concept of open banking to consumers. Is it best to focus on explaining how it works or on how it can help you? Does mentioning the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) or the bank providers that use it help reassure people or does it make them feel nervous?

To find out some of these answers, a piece of research was conducted, speaking to actual consumers, which revealed interesting insights.

Research Objective.

To understand what messaging communicates open banking to consumers best and in a way that increases trust, interest and likelihood to adopt open banking products.

Sample.

1,200 total sample; each message presented to 300 participants UK representative sample in each condition, balanced for sex, age, ethnicity

Approach.

Existing messaging that Open Up finalists use to explain open banking on their websites and wider comms, as well as messaging used by OBL, were tested.

Through a randomised controlled trial, each participant was randomly assigned to one of 4 conditions (message variants), followed by a few quantitative and qualitative questions to evaluate what they read. Results were then compared across the groups to determine which message was most likely to lead to an increase in trust, interest and likelihood to adopt an open banking product.

#3.

Focus your message on credibility, innovation and personalised consumer benefits

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How to communicate open banking?

Summary of the messages tested

Message A focuses on: ●

Long descriptions of open banking

●

4 different variations of describing open banking, taken from existing finalists web pages, were tested. Each participant saw only 1, with results then being compared across the 4 groups of responses.

● ●

You can read full messaging used in the Appendix (p.59). In summary the key differentiating points in each of the messaging variant:

●

The fact that open banking is developed by UK’s largest banks That it offers personalised services and experiences Gives specific use case: budgeting Mentions relatable examples e.g online bank statements and what an alternative would look like COVID-19 mention

Message B focuses on: ● ● ● ● ● ●

That it is designed for the modern ‘mobile world’ Uses emojis & jargon free language Contextualised examples and benefits Conversational tone Social proof that it will soon be everywhere Future of open banking

Message C focuses on: ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Regulatory context (series of reforms) Straightforward examples Reassurance (as long as you give permission) Mentions that it’s good for competition and innovation Makes the reader feel in control of their data Security mention FCA mention

Message D focuses on: ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Changes the voice from 3rd person to 2nd person Looking to the future FCA mention Asking questions Give benefit examples Mentions convenience Price comparison mention

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How to communicate open banking?

Overall the messages were useful in helping people understand what open banking is, but making information relevant to them is harder.

The extent to which people found the information useful didn’t differ significantly across message variants.

However, results showed that across the board - being relevant to consumers and their needs - is where a lot of existing open banking messaging falls short.

Message A resonated best with consumers.

The combination of mentioning personalised services and experience, that it’s developed by the UK’s largest banks, referencing a specific use case like budgeting, showing what an alternative would look like (having to manually go through bank statements) as well as a COVID-19 mention, led to an increase in consumers’ probability to trust, engage and adopt open banking.

TRUST

% of people who net Agree (strongly agree & agree) to the following statements

INTEREST

CONSIDERATION

5.33

5.60

5.17

5.11

5.33

5.04

4.74

5.32

4.88

Average score (1-10) - the extent to which people say they a) trust open banking, b) are interested to find out more about products that use it and c) are likely to consider using it in the future

32 32

How to communicate open banking?

Additionally, 7 shorter messaging lines were tested, all were underpinned by a different framing.

In this instance, all participants saw all 7 messaging versions and were asked to choose the one they prefer, as well as explaining what made it useful to them.

24%

Message 1 Innovation angle

Open banking is a technology designed for the modern 'mobile world', that provides a more secure and convenient way for you to allow access to your financial information.

[Plum]

11%

Message 5 Security angle

Open banking is the secure way to give providers access to your financial information.

[OBL]

21%

Message 2 Personalised benefits

Open banking allows people to get personalised, tailored information to help them manage their money by giving consent for regulated companies to securely analyse their bank data.

[Open Up]

6%

Message 6 Government mention

Open banking is a government-backed initiative that puts you in control of your financial data, by making it easier to manage using apps.

[Money Dashboard]

We found that: ●

Emphasis on innovation and personalised benefits important for consumers

●

More technical aspects such as data ownership and being government backed don’t resonate as much

●

When talking about security, explaining the regulatory context in simple terms resonates with consumers

19%

Message 3 Regulatory context

Open banking is a series of reforms that means all UK-regulated banks will have to let you share your financial data with authorised providers offering budgeting apps or other banks – as long as you give your permission. [Moneyhub]

6%

13%

is

Message 4 Specific use case

Open banking is secure, built by banks and powers our personalised budgets so that we can quickly and easily build a budget online to help you get the support you need.

[Tully]

Message 7 Data ownership angle

The purpose of open banking is to transfer ownership of account information from banks back to the customer.

[Moneybox]

33 33

How to communicate open banking?

Across all messages, here is what was working well...

Giving a specific use case such as budgeting, as well as what the alternative would look like for the consumer

I often find my budget is me writing on a piece of paper at the start of the month so this is something that would be useful to me.

I like that an accurate budget can be built from the bank accounts.

A

A

Saves me going through all my bank statements

A

Example-led explanation of open banking, with jargon-free, simple and easy to understand language It was clear and not too technical and had some good uses of emojis too B

It split it up into different sections and gave examples

D

It explains what open banking is quite well with an example of how the service could be used.

A

I liked that it was just like a person speaking... it had humour and no jargon and kept you interested to read it all.

B

Offering validation through mentions of the FCA backing and familiar names of established banks who are using open banking

Emphasis on personalised services and the fact that this is something innovative and designed for the modern world

If the largest banks are endorsing and utilising it, as the article states, it must have a decent level of credibility to it. Despite popular opinion, banks are run by experts in their fields.

A

Like the innovative way it will cater for more precise money advice

"Financial Authority Conduct regulated" sounds like it is secure C

Like the innovation and that it is tailored to the D person

It uses banks I have heard of A before

The professional backing of open banking is useful to know.

D

I liked that it stressed that it would only be used by FCA D regulated people

B

New technology and modern B ways

Nice summary with regards to the current “mobile” world we live in B

I like that it uses the words modern and convenient

D

Mentioning COVID-19 increases message relevancy

Liked how it linked to covid - was very easy to understand how it creates my budget for me

A

I knew the basic details but it was laid out well. I hadn't thought about how useful it could be given COVID-19, so that gave me a slightly new perspective.

A

34 34

How to communicate open banking?

But there is still scope for improving how we communicate open banking...

More reassurance and explanation for how and who you are protected by, if something goes wrong

A desire for more evidence and proof that it’s as secure as stated

Just saying 'secure' does not make it so - more detail needed. Plus I have very little disposable income at present - so little I can easily keep track of it without any help!

A

I like the idea but would need to see it demonstrated before I could begin to trust it A

Even more straightforward explanation for what it is The lack of actual solid information about what it is and how it works. It's like saying, in answer to "What is an apple?" "Apples will provide useful nutrients which you might not get from pork chops". It's a true answer, but provides little or no useful information D about apples.

Unclear how it would work. Ie how would the providers contact you. Would it involve being bombarded with lots of emails/letters about services? Also security of data. The more people who have access to it, the more chance of it being hacked/accessed inappropriately.

I don’t know enough about it and I need to be reassured my data/information is completely safe.

Nobody is in charge nor responsible when things go wrong. Who do you call? Ghostbusters?

D

I would expect a lot more assurance about the security of the information I provide for this, as I do not trust the systems used for securing data.

C

C

C

I don't fully understand who benefits, what open banking is exactly, or why I would take it up. My spending habits are private to me.

C

Bettering financial services as a whole - but how, some people might not understand that this transparency will allow more data driven decisions if it's freely available.

C

35 35

How to communicate open banking?

#4.

Offer consumers engagement tools and resources to improve the journey and their likelihood to adopt

The Open Up 2020 campaign set out to introduce 15 different products to consumers, all of whom had their story to tell, alongside unique benefits, use cases and user journeys. The fact that these are not any products, but some of the most exciting and innovative ones in the market, naturally led to a desire to focus on the products.

When launching a new and exciting product you’ve worked for so hard, it’s easy to get carried away talking about it and forget about your customer. What do they need or care to see? What are their day to day concerns or barriers to engaging?

After a month or so, it was clear that a traditional awareness building approach was not going to drive the results that were expected. People were seeing the ads but either not clicking on them, or when they clicked - dropping off the website within seconds. It was clear that to get their full attention, the ads had to offer something more than just descriptions of 15 exciting products. With COVID-19 affecting millions of people financially in the UK, it was clear that the ads needed to speak more to the consumers needs and concerns, that was reflective of the environment. The awareness campaign was adapted to feature a new, more engaging website, with streamlined user experience, and a simple engagement mechanic where people could find out 5 simple things they can do to feel more in control of their finances. This led to a much stronger awareness generating campaign, by simply leading with what consumers would find useful in such a critical moment, as opposed what the products were.

36 36

How to communicate open banking?

From a long list which explained what each product is

To 1.48 Pages per session

An engagement mechanic that talked about product benefits aligned to customer needs

Pages per session

+57%

3737

In this section:

Learnings for fintechs and the wider open banking industry on what helps drive adoption of open banking enabled products

4.How to drive adoption of open banking

38 38

How to drive adoption of open banking?

Driving Adoption of open banking powered solutions Learnings about what gets people to consider these products After a couple of months of message and creative testing, learning what works best and generating a good level of awareness of the Open Up brand, the campaign shifted focus its primary goal - to drive adoption of the 15 open banking powered solutions.

For the digital ads, while many potential routes were considered, the approach that was landed on was one where each of the finalists would be promoted individually through the Open Up 2020 brand,

which allowed the targeting to be customised.

Messages were based on the product proposition and what was most useful to share with consumers, as opposed to one overarching and generic campaign that talked about them collectively.

For the majority of the adoption campaign, traffic was driven directly to the finalists’ websites, or in some instances - directly to their app, as opposed to going via the Open Up 2020 website, as this offered the most streamlined user journey for consumers.

However, serving the ads through the Open Up 2020 accounts still allowed more sceptical consumers to learn more about the challenge and who was behind the promotion of these products.

A summary of the most interesting findings gathered through this campaign are on p.38-49 ➜

39 39

How to drive adoption of open banking?

#1.

When you are starting from scratch: test, test, and test again

One of the fundamentals of running a successful digital campaign is adopting a test & learn approach. This is often ignored when companies are planning their big launch, have secured a new round of investment or have an exciting product feature to announce.

Through adopting a testing mindset - driven by audience behaviour and iterative development of messaging and creative - you are always in a position to learn as you go, and build momentum that can be geared towards later stages of a campaign.

This also means your marketing budget is spent wisely - instead of committing to a budget by channel and audience in the beginning, and placing all your budget in one creative direction hoping it’d work, you can learn and adapt your media plan as you go.

Even when you think you know the answer, test it.

Throughout the campaign, everything was tested, including…. ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Creative direction Creative style (e.g using photography vs illustration) Taglines Messaging framings (informed by behavioural science) Copy variations Audiences (and creative / copy by audience) Journeys (where people land after seeing the ads

… and yet surprising findings were never hard to come by, even when the data supported the original hypothesis, there were new learnings to unpack.

40 40

How to drive adoption of open banking?

Adopting a test & learn approach often means saying goodbye to a big campaign launch with a loud PR and advertising push; instead, it means starting small while you test your way through hypotheses and continuously optimise your activity based on data while you reach the optimal point to start ramping up the activity, and therefore your advertising spend.

Example structure for one of the tests that was run

The adopted Test & Learn approach

The traditional approach of broadcast campaigns Big advertising & PR push when the campaign launches, with little sustained engagement and adoption over time

For example, one of the very first campaigns that was run helped determine which campaign articulation to use throughout, but also the specific messaging angles, informed by different behavioural principles, in an A/B style testing structure (see below). While this increased the creative production time, it meant learnings were often able to be identified quickly and optimised towards.

Our iterative test & learn approach to drive action Continuously optimising the activity based on learnings and key moments to drive higher adoption over time

41 41

Over the course of the digital campaign, over 180 ad variants were created, including 30+ unique messaging angles, tested across 50+ audiences.

42

How to drive adoption of open banking?

#2.

Plan for the future

Boost your resilience

Support others

15.5%

13.9%

0.9%

adoption rate

adoption rate

adoption rate

Products that help customers plan for their future do best

Products that provided people with helpful, long-term solutions to save money or to improve their resilience were a resounding success. They proved to be significantly more effective than altruistic, outward-looking solutions that were more geared toward helping others (for example through charitable giving or financial accessibility). One hypothesis is this could be due to most people in society understanding the personal relevance of strengthening their own personal finances, whereas outward-looking products may be less aligned to many people’s personal circumstances. This is even more likely to be the case during COVID-19, when planning for the future has became a priority for many. The results would suggest, for products geared on “supporting others”, advertising channels and partnership approaches would be best suited to increase the quality of advertising relevance — for example, through a search-oriented approach where people could be served adverts relevant to their Google entries, or through a partnership approach with websites who attract hyper-specific audiences.

43 43

How to drive adoption of open banking?

#3.

To drive product adoption, social proof messaging and piquing consumers’ interest is key

One of the most interesting learnings is the difference in what messages work for raising awareness of open banking vs driving direct action - adoption of the products.

Early on (p.30) it was noticeable that focusing on innovation, personalised benefits and relatable straightforward examples work best when communicating open banking. However, for product adoption messages that offered consumers social proof, grabbing their attention (with a question or a brand image) worked best.

Two important differences, of course, are 1) the objective for these two messages one focusing on open banking, the other on the product, and 2) the length of the copy - while for communicating open banking larger body text is often used to explain the concept, for product advertising copy lines are much more succinct.

The messages that worked best in attracting consumers’ attention to engage with the products were those that offered social proof (either through testimonials from other customers, or using stats about the number of people already using this product, or it’s rating), as well as messages that piqued consumers’ interest by starting with a question, or the product brand (logo & product shot as an opening frame). Less effective were messages that used analogies (in contrast to communicating open banking where similar relevant examples worked really well), messages that referenced the user’s identity or messages that aimed to tackle the present bias around finances by getting consumers to think about their future self.

See full results on next page ➜

44 44

How to drive adoption of open banking?

Message framings ...that didn’t work as well

that worked SOCIAL PROOF: USING TESTIMONIES 0.55% CTR

MISSING OUT (LOSS AVERSION) 0.43% CTR

e.g “Without Mojo, I don’t think I could have got a mortgage to buy my home!”. - Customer

e.g “It’s never too late to help someone you love with financial admin”

STARTING WITH A QUESTION 0.52% CTR

SOCIETAL CONTEXT 0.43% CTR

e.g “Does your monthly payday meet your daily needs?”

e.g “4 in 10* young UK adults have faced mortgage rejection”

PRODUCT FIRST 0.51% CTR

STARTING WITH THE PROBLEM 0.42% CTR

e.g starting with a screen with the brand logo & introducing the product

e.g “Managing money is hard.

For everyone.”

SOCIAL PROOF: USING STATS 0.46% CTR

INNOVATION 0.42% CTR

e.g “Join the 1 million people already working towards their financial goals!.”

e.g “At last. A new way to gain your financial confidence..”

FUTURE SELF 0.41% CTR

e.g “Start saving for a better tomorrow.”

STARTING WITH THE SOLUTION 0.41% CTR

e.g “Manage all your money in one app..”

USING IDENTITY 0.40% CTR

e.g Hey savers! Crush your financial goals..”

USING ANALOGIES 0.34% CTR

e.g “Meet the travel expert for your wallet.”

1

Based on confidence intervals, click through rates for adoption ads are nearly all statistically distinct. Testimony had the highest CTR, followed by question and brand led, which tied. Static had the lowest. However, we should note that because Facebook’s custom algorithm and optimisation, these audiences were likely not 100% balanced.

45 45

How to drive adoption of open banking?

In the beginning of the campaign, to build awareness, trust and engagement amongst audiences, 4 segments were targeted, defined by the different attitudes they hold towards financial technology and open banking. These audiences were designed help gather insights about what attitudinal mindsets should be the focus to go after, before heading into the adoption phase of the campaign where more diverse audiences were introduced.

The initial hypothesis was that early adopters - people who regularly engage with other fintech products and are passionate about innovation - would be the group that would be most engaged with the campaign. But we needed to test this, so we mapped out a spectrum of 4 attitudinal segments:

EARLY ADOPTERS

Consumers who are tech savvy and are always on the look for innovative products that help them stay ahead of the curve, be productive and optimise their time and budget.

CONVENIENCE SEEKERS

DISENGAGED NEUTRALS

Not as driven by price or innovation, these consumers mostly look for convenience.

They’ll engage with an innovative product if it saves them time or if it simplifies things for them.

Not particularly interested in fintech products but not opposed to them either. Currently prefer going to a branch. They may occasionally log-in to internet banking, but don’t have digital habits when it comes to managing their finances.

#4.

Older, security conscious audiences are very engaged and shouldn’t be ignored

SECURITY CONSCIOUS

Consumers with high barriers to engage with fintech products due to data and security concerns. They worry about how their personal data is being used by companies and are concerned about the Internet eroding their personal privacy.

46 46

How to drive adoption of open banking?

The campaign results showed the opposite.

Surprisingly, early adopters were the least likely to engage with the initial awareness building campaign, and notoriously expensive to reach, too. This of course is driven by competition and the number of advertisers interested in their attention, but also the fact that they are bombarded by so many new fintech propositions, that their interest in campaigns of this kind is naturally lower.

EARLY ADOPTERS

0.36% Click Through Rate

In contrast, security conscious audiences - those who are older, and whose lack of pre-existing engagement with similar products makes them less appealing to advertisers in this space - turned out to be the most engaged segment from the attitudinal mindsets tested.

Whilst driving adoption from these audiences wasn’t easy, the analysis showed that sustained engagement over time could be an effective way to unlock new habits, by taking audiences on a journey.

CONVENIENCE SEEKERS

DISENGAGED NEUTRALS

SECURITY CONSCIOUS

0.34%

0.39%

0.42%

Click Through Rate

Click Through Rate

Click Through Rate

47 47

How to drive adoption of open banking?

#5.

But when it comes to adoption, the younger the audience, the more likely they are to adopt

The results of the campaign showed that while older people are more likely to interact with open banking adverts than younger people, they are much less likely to actually adopt. This presents younger audiences as being the strongest opportunity area. This is positive news from an advertising perspective — not only is it much cheaper to reach young people with digital advertising than older people, they are also much cheaper to get to adopt. Comparatively, on average its 3x cheaper to get someone aged 18-25 to adopt vs for someone aged 65+. This is a consistent pattern seen in the results — where the older audiences, the more expensive they were to reach and to get to adopt, and vice versa for younger ones.

Propensity to adopt by age: While older audiences are more likely to click (dark blue) they are less likely to convert (light blue)

48 48

How to drive adoption of open banking?

#6.

Financially vulnerable and struggling audiences are open to hear about products that can help them From the interest-based audiences that were used, the financially vulnerable (ie.both caregivers and family members of older people with cognitive impairments such as dementia or Alzheimer’s) and the financially struggling (ie. whose behaviours indicate they might be in debt, or having troubles making ends meet) showed highest interest in the products that ‘can help me’. However, worth noting is the audience size (Facebook targetable audience), as while they present an opportunity for products that aim to address vulnerability, they are also a fairly small audiences when it comes to available targeting pool on Facebook.

49 49

In this section:

Learnings for fintechs looking to improve their marketing campaigns and promotion of products

5. How to run campaigns to promote open banking products 50 50

How to run campaigns to promote open banking products?

#1.

It is cost effective to nurture people through the entire marketing funnel

‘Cold’ Audiences

‘Warm’ Audiences

‘Hot’ Audiences

Eg. People who have no historic exposure to a product but may have ‘interests’ in, for example, people interested in savings

Eg. People who - based on owned first party data - resemble the type of people who adopt or exhibit higher affinity actions

Eg. People who are aware of a product and have engaged with it (such as through a website visit) but not yet adopted it

1.05% adoption rate

1.55% adoption rate

3.2% adoption rate

Based off interest targeting

Based off lookalike modelling

Based off retargeting site visitors

Results show a direct correlation between audience affinity and their propensity to adopt — with ‘hot’ audiences (who were served an advert after visiting a finalist website) being 200% more likely to adopt and 60% cheaper to acquire than completely ‘cold’ audiences who only exhibited relevant interests. This leads to a recommendation for the use of through-the-funnel marketing tactics, whereby awareness is raised first amongst ‘colder’ audiences to grow out pools of people to model data from and ultimately ‘remarket’ to in order to nurture and drive adoption.

51 51

How to run campaigns to promote open banking products?

Simple style

Illustrative style

Static image

#2.

Video

0.32%

0.31%

Click Through Rate

Click Through Rate

0.31%

1.67%

Click Through Rate

Click Through Rate

Videos using a simple style resonate best with consumers As part of the campaign, a number of different visual styles and formats were tested, which provided some interesting findings. The results showed that videos in a simple, directional style with no illustrations worked best across finalists.

52 52

How to run campaigns to promote open banking products?

#3.

Consider the best placements for your campaign

In addition to which channels to use to engaged consumers at different points through the funnel, it’s also important to consider the placement meaning where exactly in the channel your ad would appear.

In Facebook, it was noticeable that in-stream video placement performed best, where people were most likely to click on the video ads and ~18% of all who clicked went on to sign up for the product.

In Instagram, Stories were more effective than videos in the news feed or the Explore tab.

Videos were even more effective during COVID-19 with more people engaging with video content online

53 53

How to run campaigns to promote open banking products?

#4.

Different channels serve different purposes.

Display advertising is best to raise awareness, social is best to drive action

While web banners (which were served through programmatic display) are hugely cost effective for raising awareness and driving lower-barrier actions, such as getting someone to click, social media overall is much more effective for actually driving higher barrier adoption asks. The recommendation here would be for products to use display advertising earlier in the journey to raise ‘awareness’ and ‘engagement’ and then to use this heightened awareness and pool of data to ‘remarket’ and get people to adopt via social media advertising.

Display advertising

Social advertising

(website banners)

90% cheaper

(Facebook & Instagram)

Cost to Reach Cost to reach 1,000 people

CTR

0.26%

% of people who click on an advert

0.11%

% of people who adopt after clicking

Conversion Rate

0.35% 17.52% 54 54

How to run campaigns to promote open banking products?

#5.

Don’t ignore smaller regions in the UK when campaigning — they often perform stronger than England.

While engagement rates were similar across the UK, smaller countries drove stronger levels compared to England.

As the click through rates (CTR) below indicate, people in England clicked through on adverts six percent less than people in Scotland, where engagement was strongest. While not a drastic change, with CTRs as a whole being fairly similar, this outlines the efficiency in targeting smaller countries within the UK versus England alone.

Scotland

Wales

Northern Ireland

England

0.48% CTR

0.47% CTR

0.46% CTR

0.45% CTR

That said, things differ marginally by product type. While products focused on ‘supporting others’ worked best in Northern Ireland, the same region performed poorest for products that ‘boost resilience’. All of this underpins the importance for companies to pay attention to the performance of activity at a micro-level, ensuring that campaigns are optimised to the area(s) where they are most likely to resonate.

55 55

How to run campaigns to promote open banking products?

When laying the foundations of your audience strategy, a multi-layer approach to targeting is recommended. Many startups and organisations traditionally focus on the bottom layer - using audience demographics as a simple solution to defining who to target. But as the results have shown, in this campaign, this often reinforces biases and means you might be ignoring audiences that are surprisingly right for your product. Thinking about the attitudinal mindset you’d like to attract, as well as the financial needs of the consumer over their age or gender will give you stronger results and a more robust view of who you should be speaking to.

#6.

Consider a multilayered approach to your audience targeting

56 56

How to run campaigns to promote open banking products?

#7.

Leverage paid and earned PR to create a halo effect for digital ads.

Most of the media spend for Open Up 2020 was on digital ads - but throughout the campaign we used paid and earned PR to amplify messaging and build broader awareness of Open Up 2020, open banking and the 15 finalists to increase engagement, trust and likelihood to adopt.

To further understand the impact of this approach, we ran a regional test in Glasgow, with research book-ending a paid PR push across print, online and radio (the digital ads had been running for over 3 months by this stage and continued through the PR push). Research showed that after this activity, people were 6% more likely to be comfortable using a money management tool on a mobile device, with the biggest uplift of 10% more people stating that they would benefit from on money management tools to help save money.

4% more people said they saw no drawbacks to using open banking; there was also a 4% reduction in people saying that having to share their personal data with another company and having to put time in to set it up was a drawback of open banking.

Most significantly, 10% more people stated that they would trust open banking solutions, rising from 61% before the PR push to 71% afterward, demonstrating the power of targetted PR to create a halo effect for digital ads.

Source: Opinium, on behalf of Nesta Challenges, interviewed 503 adults from 7th-9th September 2020 and 500 adults 21st-29th September 2020 in Glasgow.

57 57

How to run campaigns to promote open banking products?

When developing your approach to public relations, building a strong reactive and proactive press office can enable you to establish and build strong relationships with relevant journalists.

Through proactively monitoring news and your media coverage, you’ll gauge what is of interest to journalists. You’ll also be able to understand which key messages are unlikely to land editorially, without paid-for activity, and therefore judge how to best leverage any paid PR budget to get out messaging that might be important for your audience but isn’t of interest to journalists.

In Open Up 2020, we quickly saw our newer finalists were getting more coverage by media than more established players, and that journalists were not keen to cover the safety aspects of open banking. We leveraged paid partnerships with This is Money and WIRED Magazine to build coverage for our key messages around safety and use of open banking and ensure that all finalists, no matter their stage, got coverage.

#8.

Work out what media are interested in editorially and enhance credibility for new tech using paid partnerships

58 58

How to run campaigns to promote open banking products?

Checklist for fintechs running a digital campaign

❏

Objective. Have you clearly defined what the campaign objective is? Are you focusing on awareness, engagement or conversions? Are you setting up the right optimisation goal (e.g in Facebook) that aligns to your objective?

❏

Messaging. Have you tested if your copy will resonate with consumers? Are you saying only things about your product and nothing about the customer? Are you using too much jargon?

Are you giving relatable examples? Are you tailoring your messaging per audience?

❏

Audiences. Have you researched the audiences you’re after?

Have you spoken to them and their financial concerns? Are you targeting only audiences that have traditionally performed for you and forgetting about others who might be open to hear about it? Are you using behavioural-based audience targeting?

Tip: behavioural-based targeting (eg. retargeting website visitors, or lookalike audience) is one of the best way to reach warm audiences who are ready to convert to a user.

❏

Journey. Are you sending people to the best environment where they are most likely to convert? If your product is an app, do you have SDK integration to direct people straight to the app store?

Tip: every product is different and often have multiple journeys, so test each of these and compare their efficacy to define your primary journey.

❏

Channels. Are you choosing the right channel mix based on where your audiences are? Are you prioritising the channel that’s most cost-effective for the objective you have?

Tip: use Facebook and Instagram for cost-effective conversion campaigns, and display for awareness building campaigns.

❏

Measurement. Are you able to track and measure the results of your campaign effectively? Do you have tracking pixels installed on your website? Is your Google Analytics set up and have you’ve created custom events that would help you attribute results to the campaign?

Tip: ensure you’re measuring various points in the journey to understand where exactly people are dropping off and make changes to the experience or the campaign accordingly.

Tip: consider taking your audiences on a journey, by starting with an awareness building-campaign and then re-engaging these warmer audiences with adoption asks.

Tip: messages that offer social proof do a great job in building credibility, as does mentioning the FCA backing and how open banking is regulated.

59 59

How to run campaigns to promote open banking products? ❏

Objectives. Make your communications objectives SMART: ❏ Specific - Clearly define your communication objective(s). For example, are you wanting to: Launch a product to a specific audience? Encourage trials? Reposition brand/product? Drive sign-up to the app? Differentiate your product from the competition? Help gain market share? ❏ Measurable - Work with other team members to analyse data, results and changes that have happened from the start of the activity to the first measurement milestone. Important measurement tactics include for example: numbers signing up to the app/using the app, increase in awareness or change in perception and analysis of market share. ❏ Actionable - Ensure that objectives are achievable in a realistic time-frame. If your objective is too far in the future/complex, then it’s advisable to break it down to a shorter-term objective. ❏ Realistic - There is nothing wrong with being ambitious and stretching yourself, but make sure you are working to something that is still achievable. ❏ Time-based - Your objective should be closely tied to a date (or time). The more specific you can be with this deadline, the better.

❏

Messaging. Develop your key messages: Key messages crystallise your product’s takeaway, the master narrative, the elevator pitch; they’re the essence of what you want to communicate and what’s needed to engage people. Make sure you tailor your messages to your target audiences.

❏

Audiences. Establish your key audiences: Your target audience is not everyone - you might have a number of target audiences that you want to land your message with. For example, you might be seeking a B2B client as a partner (e.g. a bank) and need to raise awareness of the product amongst the financial services sector. Or you might be speaking the end user a so you will need to focus on communicating the consumer benefits.

❏

Channels. Consider your channels: During the target audience analysis, it is important to think which channels are best for reaching them. Owned channels include your social channels and website. Earned channels might include national print media, radio, TV or regional publications where you achieve coverage editorially. Paid-for channels allow you to ensure greater control over your key messages within key media and can ensure backlinks for SEO purposes.

Checklist for fintechs developing a public relations approach

60 60

How to run campaigns to promote open banking products?

For teams to drive results, they need the right people, tactics and skills in place.

Key areas where startups could add extra value across existing web and social advertising functions are namely around tracking, analysis and audience discovery. Fintechs should prioritise setting up ecosystems where the following skills and experience can be developed:

Insight-Fuelled Evolution Loop

Creative & UX Development

Web & Social Deployment

Analysis & Evolution

Recommended digital skills and resources fintechs should consider

Core Approach

Enablers

Creative lead whose focus is on content & creative development, that develops over time in line with performance & audience insight

With testing & learning being so crucial, user testing —through focus groups and surveys — would fill in any gaps or answer hypotheses that performance data may not answer, before launch

Collaborative media & web leads whose roles include the definition, deployment & tracking of clear test & learn approaches, using tools to ensure platforms work as one

Tools such as Google Tag Manager could be used more across products to increase efficiency, deployment & trackability of campaigns through the entire user journey

An analyst who spans both web, social (and, for some products, app tracking), to work in partnership with the media & web leads to leverage insights & stories to inform the creative lead’s evolution

Looking beyond core performance metrics, to the collective story of journeys, creative and audiences, would be a core focus and could be enabled by clear user-oriented test & learn strategies and displayed in real-time with dashboards

61 61

Thank You. Report published on 2 December 2020

Prepared by Blue State, a digital consultancy who led on the planning and execution of the nationwide digital campaign Seven Consultancy, PR and communications experts who specialise in innovation and tech, who led on the PR and Nesta Challenges, who ran the Open Up 2020 Challenge For more information: challenges@nesta.org.uk

6262

Appendix Full messages tested in consumer research

63 63

Each participant saw either message A, B, C or D

Message A What is open banking?

Open banking is a secure way to share the information from your online bank statements (such as income and spending).

It has been developed by the UK’s largest banks so that you can get access to more personalised financial services and experiences such as our product.

To help you understand your current financial circumstances and so that you can get the right support for you, we’ll work with you to build a budget online.

Our budgets are created using open banking and we refer to it simply as ‘sharing your online bank statements’.

We use open banking to help you build a budget quickly and easily online.

Usually, to build a budget, you would need to search through your bank statements, do the math and more than likely miss some of your spending or income. We use open banking to do all that work for you. We only ask you to fill in the gaps.

This results in a more accurate budget that represents your money left over during the Coronavirus crisis.

● Developed by UK’s largest banks ● Personalised services and experiences ● Specific use case: budgeting ● Online bank statements ● What an alternative would look like ● COVID-19 mention

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Each participant saw either message A, B, C or D

Message B What is open banking?

You want your money to be safe. That's a given. So the concept of an 'open' bank may seem a strange one.

Firstly, let's clarify—it doesn't mean your money is no longer safely stored in the bank vault! đ&#x;”? Whilst they won't be throwing open the doors to the safety deposit boxes, banks are now obligated to let you share your account details with organisations that you choose.

Put simply, it's a technology designed for the modern 'mobile world', that provides a more secure and convenient way for you to allow access to your financial information.

Whilst it's true that open banking means you can share account access with whoever you so wish, it should also help keep the bandidos at bay đ&#x;‘Žâ€?♀

Plum

It allows third-party financial apps to utilise biometric security features built-in to modern smartphones.

This makes things more convenient for you too, because there's less reliance on lengthy passwords that you need to remember! Authorised providers will be granted read-only access to data related to the specific service you've signed-up for, and all the normal data protection rules still apply.

For many, the concept of allowing a third-party to access your bank account may still seem a little unsettling. But it's important to remember that these providers can't make changes to your account, or move money etc., unless you've granted them specific permission to do so.

Also, the fact that this technology will soon underpin all major UK financial institutions means that vast amounts of effort has already gone into eradicating any potential risks, ahead of the system going live.

Overall, we feel that greater transparency and the anticipated upsurge in the likes of e.g. price comparison or financial assistance tools that use new open banking technology will far outweigh any potential concerns

� Designed for the modern ‘mobile world’ � Use of emojis & jargon free � Contextualise d examples and benefits � Conversationa l tone � Social proof that it will soon be everywhere � Future of OB

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Each participant saw either message A, B, C or D

Message C What is open banking?

In short, open banking is a series of reforms that means all UK-regulated banks will have to let you share your financial data such as your spending habits, regular payments and companies you use (basically, for the moment, your current account information) with authorised providers offering budgeting apps or other banks – as long as you give your permission.

The idea behind these changes is that they'll bring more competition and innovation to financial services which, in turn, will lead to more and better products to help manage your money. open banking puts you in control of your data and lets you find the best deal and the best services easily and safely. open banking is all well and good, but it doesn't mean you can automatically share you data with just anyone. You can only safely share your financial information with people who are Financial Conduct Authority regulated.

● Regulatory context (series of reforms) ● Straightforward examples ● Reassurance (as long as you give permission) ● Competition and innovation ● In control of your data ● Security ● FCA mention

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Each participant saw either message A, B, C or D

Message D What is open banking?

Open banking is the secure way to give providers access to your financial information.

It opens the way to new products and services that could help customers and small to medium-sized businesses get a better deal. It could also give you a more detailed understanding of your accounts, and help you find new ways to make the most of your money.

Get ready for a world of apps and websites, where you can choose new financial products and services from providers regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and European equivalents.

OBL

It works with online or mobile banking: Do you use online or mobile banking for your current account? Then you can start using open banking today. Discover apps and websites from regulated providers that are already using open banking to create new services for you. We call them the Regulated Providers.

A clearer view of your finances: See all of your finances in one place, thanks to open banking. It could help you budget, find the best deals, and shop for the products and services that suit you. You can choose to give a regulated app or website secure access to your current account information.

Quick, easy and direct payments: With open banking, you can make payments directly from your bank or building society.

Shop around: open banking could transform the way you use price comparison websites: if you choose to give a regulated price comparison website access to your account information, you’ll be able to get results based on what you actually spend.

● From 3rd person to 2nd person ● Futurelooking ● FCA mention ● Asking questions ● Benefit examples ● Convenience ● Price comparison mention

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