Bank of America #Connect4Red Case Study
“You Engage. We’ll Give”: For each free download of the U2 song Invisible, Bank of America donated $1 to (RED) to fund life-saving AIDS medication for pregnant mothers.
Script
Narrator: “Imagine a world without AIDS. Where the 260,000 African children born with HIV every year plummets to zero by the year 2015. It’s not impossible, not when our brand’s promise is life’s better when we’re connected. Where employees, customers and the world alike connect around a singular moment and one simple action jump starts the beginning of the end of AIDS, but it takes a village, a global village, so we joined forces with one of the most successful charitable foundations in the world and one of the biggest bands on the planet and announced it all at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Then we teased that something huge was going to happen before launching it at the biggest media event on earth. Bank of America #Connect4Red. The incentive: Download U2’s new single Invisible for free and Bank of America will donate one dollar for everyone that does. We also made sure to encourage everyone to share the message and our mission.
The global problem needs a global company that has the heart, the commitment and the humanity to get the job done.
We even enlisted 500 of the top radio personalities to lend their voices and use social media like never before, like the first ever Facebook ad unit that enabled direct downloads from iTunes, the first ever direct link to iTunes downloads from Google paid search, and the first ever autoplay video tweets and Twitter trend with Vine.
The results: 1 million downloads in just one hour, and 3.1 million downloads in the following 24 hours, shattering all previous download records and making music history.
More importantly, it translated into more than seven million days of AIDS therapy for pregnant mothers and people thought positively (+2.5 brand sentiment) about the bank for the most consecutive days since 2008, reminding us all that it’s not what brands say, but what they do that really matters, and that life truly can be better when we’re connected.
[Bank of America logo]
Year
2014Related Materials
#Connect4Red Marketing
In the week prior to the 2014 Super Bowl, Bank of America used paid, owned, and earned media to tease a free 24-hour download event.
The countdown to the event was teased on 15 Bank of America and (RED) sites and mobile properties, as well as on iTunes itself. The countdown was also featured on a digital billboard in Times Square that could be seen in the background of Super Bowl pre-game TV coverage on Fox.
To further capture attention, the U2 song was teased on radio and a promoted Vine on Twitter.
The #Connect4Red ad ran at the end of the Super Bowl’s first quarter, followed by 13 more airings during post-game commentary and the next morning’s “best commercial” segments on news and talk shows.
Innovation note: Exclusive, customized, and pioneering deals with Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo!, and Shazam made direct-to-iTunes downloads possible.
#Connect4Red Results
3,144,477 downloads of Invisible in 24 hours generated a $3,144,477 donation from Bank of America — which yielded over 7.8 million days of life-saving AIDS medication for pregnant mothers. From a goodwill perspective, Bank of America achieved its most consecutive days of positive brand sentiment since 2008, with its donation promoted via a Super Bowl commercial, 7 million YouTube views, 112,000 campaign mentions and 107,000 tweets.
Bank of America #Connect4Red Super Bowl (2014) Commercial
Bank of America #Connect4Red Alternate Case Study
Bank of America’s Follow-up Partnership with (RED) and iHeartMedia
Later in 2014, following its #Connect4Red Super Bowl event, Bank of America partnered with iHeartMedia to fundraise for (RED) on World AIDS Day (December 1, 2014) and Giving Tuesday (December 2, 2014). The iHeartMedia case study showcases its cross-platform content and media tactics.
