Anna the geeky teenager, Marianne the grandma who always thinks she’s young, Michel the family friend who’s a sports fan… Here are some of the characters we can meet since January 14 in Crédit Agricole’s video communications. With its agency BETC, which has supported it since 2011, the bank made a bet: to renovate its way of communicating by testing the format of the series, focused on fiction, with recurring characters – sixteen in total – living stories with twists and turns even subject to the vagaries of current events. No less than a hundred episodes are planned to begin. A turning point for the bank. “We had two reasons to change, begins Sieglinde Sire, director of brand and communications at Crédit Agricole. The first is related to communication. We launched the previous territory in 2020. Since then, we have gained points in terms of image but this type of territory, very emotional, has been taken over. We therefore wanted to find differentiation and leadership. The second is linked to strategy. We needed to promote and defend the universality of our banking model. » That is to say, she explains, the fact that the company is aimed at everyone (individuals, businesses, families, farmers, athletes, etc.), with a diversified range of offers (banking services, insurance , real estate, etc.) and adapted “for all moments of life”.
Reflecting this positioning was the brief given to the agency, without a specific call for tenders for this project. “Accounting for universality is difficult. A 20-second TV exercise seemed insufficient. We couldn’t make a feature film eitherrecounts Stéphane Xiberras, president and creative director of BETC, who was also recently distinguished by the media Bestads among the best international DCs of the last twenty years. Hence the fact of defining a project overflowing on all social media. »
Teddy Riner and guest
In a series of tablets or episodes of varying length – a few seconds for some –, cut out and adapted to each presence platform including TikTok, the bank invites the public to delve into the daily life of a family, the Déons , who has just moved. The parents get to know the neighbors, the grandmother shoots images with her granddaughters, the family shares a sofa to watch a match on television… Occasionally, among them, surprise guests, like the judo champion Teddy Riner – the opportunity to highlight Crédit Agricole’s partnership with France Judo – or Zen, a figure in e-sport.
“It’s not just jokes, sketches, one-man shows, but it resonates with the life of the French,” supports Stéphane Xiberras, who approves the references of Do not do this, do not do that on parenthood or Scenes of households on the couple. “Less orthodox than expected a priori, increasingly inspired by dynamic and innovative consumer markets, bank communication is structured around two main logics: talking to the customer or talking about the customer,” analyzes the Xerfi institute in a video posted online on the Xerfi Canal website and dated March 2023. This is the second scenario that wants to apply here.
For BETC, this new mode of writing, long-form fiction, is accompanied by a new way of working. The agency has set up a “pool” of authors, with four to five writers. Reading workshops took place. Not so common in advertising, especially since this choice involves a difficulty: “When filming, that means leaving some room for improvisation”underlines Stéphane Xiberras, whose teams moved into « mode showrunner » for this project. At the helm, director Noémie Saglio (Asshole with Camille Cottin, Heart plan on Netflix). “Noémie Saglio draws a lot of inspiration from her personal life to tell stories. Her approach as a woman, as a mother interested us and not just her purely comical look”indicates Stéphane Xiberras.
Switching to all video
Another turning point taken simultaneously, the deployment of a new media strategy. In charge, the Havas Media agency. Previously accustomed to promoting itself in the press, on the radio or through traditional billboards, Crédit Agricole is moving to “total video”: TV, DOOH (digital billboards), social networks. “The idea is to be both affinity (on social networks) and universal (on TV), explicite Sieglinde Sire. 100% video, for a series, was the most obvious medium, it allows you to tell stories. »
This new way of communicating is part of the bank’s overall strategy. The series allows Crédit Agricole to communicate differently, in a way that is both more embodied and more humorous, on its usual themes: real estate, membership, young people, sport, etc. With one particularity: the possibility of reflecting on current events, while filming will take place four times a year to produce the communication elements for the following months. “If an epidemic breaks out, the characters will experience it…”, illustrates the brand. Particularly involved as a partner in football and judo, the bank will undoubtedly have a card to play at the time of the major sporting events of 2024, the Euro (June 14-July 14) and the Paris 2024 Olympics – even if , not being one of the official partners, it will not be able to afford everything.
Another strategic aspect: ” Against competition [des néobanques], to the new needs of consumers linked to the digital shift in uses or to the increase in attrition, the major French banks have each built brand portfolio strategies that are complementary to each other., continues Xerfi Canal in video. Crédit Agricole thus defends the universality of its model where LCL (Crédit Agricole group) positions itself as an urban bank – as evidenced by its signature: “My life. My city. My bank” – and BforBank (idem) as “relational digital bank”, a positioning adopted in September 2023.
2024-01-31 22:36:02
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