Financial Services Brand Fuels Revenue Growth with Deep Competitive Intel

Challenge

The Diverse Segments team of a major Financial Services & Banking brand has a dedicated focus on understanding the specific needs and preferences of consumers to help inform culturally relevant and authentic in-market executions. While the team partners with many market research vendors, they came to Collage Group to add depth to their insights across multicultural and generational consumers in the U.S.   

While the team had developed many successful dedicated advertising executions across the years that speak to cultural nuances, the Financial Services & Banking brand approached Collage Group with a new challenge. They wanted to prove that cultural insights can be applied to create campaigns that widely resonate across the total market, as well. 

Solution

Collage Group’s data overwhelmingly shows that culturally resonate advertising featuring a specific segment can and will resonate across broader audiences if done in an authentic, relatable way. This is counter to the thinking that brands face a “trade-off” when deciding between a culturally nuanced dedicated ad aimed at a specific consumer segment and a more generic total market execution.

Collage Group partnered with the Financial Services & Banking brand to recommend a solution that would apply the CultureRate:Brand and Ad evaluation methodology in depth across its brand and ads. The result aimed to illuminate that it is possible to break the “genpop vs. targeted” trade-off specifically among the financial sector, helping the Financial Services & Banking brand escape the trap of being generic or forgettable. Further, the solution included key takeaways for the brand to understand where and how they rank among their competitors, and make informed decisions for future ad and brand investments.

CultureRate:Ad Evaluation

Through CultureRate:Ad, the Financial Services & Banking brand’s ads were put to the test as part of a suite of rigorous methodologies that helped brands navigate the rapidly shifting consumer landscape. The ads were evaluated on two metrics: the Ad Cultural Fluency Quotient (A- CFQ) and Backlash, both of which are supported with an exhaustive range of diagnostic metrics.

• A-CFQ is Collage Group’s proprietary KPI that uses four factors to optimally predict high brand favorability and purchase intent.
• Backlash metrics take conventional brand favorability a step further by quantifying the degree to which an ad can “flip” perception from positive to negative or vice versa.

Combining A-CFQ and Backlash metrics for target segments revealed the dynamics that made for the Financial Services & Banking brand’s ads successful, or unsuccessful, as compared to their competitors.

CultureRate:Brand Evaluation

Through CultureRate:Brand, the brand was evaluated on the Brand Cultural Fluency Quotient (B-CFQ), which measures how well brands are resonating with consumers. It assessed the Financial Services & Banking brand along six key cultural dimensions: brand fit, relevance, memories, values, trust and advocacy. The B-CFQ Threshold then helped illuminate for the Financial Services & Banking brand whether their B-CFQ score was high enough to lead to increased brand favorability and purchase intent.

Results

As a result of the CultureRate:Ad and Brand evaluations, Collage Group provided key insight into how the the Financial Services & Banking company’s brand and ads are performing across each diverse consumer segment…