How BPAY plans to market to millennials

BPAY teams up with Hamish & Andy for a podcast campaign

The need to introduce BPAY to a younger audience has led its marketing team to a podcast and a social media campaign.

While BPAY has been around for years and is well known and understood by the older generations, research BPAY recently undertook via Millward Brown showed younger generations, specifically those aged between 25-34, didn’t use the platform as much as their older counterparts.

The electronic payments system enjoys a unique position. Established more than 20 years ago, BPAY has partnerships with more than 160 banks and has 98 per cent brand awareness.

But being the preferred way to pay bills in Australia is a double-edged sword, because, well, bills – and no one wants to think, let alone talk, about bills.

It is also somewhat hampered by the fact the business is more B2B than B2C. While consumers are aware of BPAY, it is implemented via financial institutions, and the company works with these institutions to not only market the product, but to shape the product depending on the needs of the banks.

Last year, the group also launched the instant payments platform, Osko.

“We’re talking about bills here,” Renee Amor, group general manager of marketing at BPAY Group told CMO.

“It is not the most fun of categories, and how to make marketing exciting around this is not everyone’s first option. We can’t overreach, but we can talk about it in the right language, and by keeping it simple, and humorous.

“Having 98 per cent brand awareness makes the marketer’s job a lot easier. So what we look at doing, continuously, is to maintain the brand, and find opportunities and segments where we can improve.”

Last year, in conjunction with Millward Brown, BPAY implemented a weekly brand tracker standard, and brand measurements, to look at where it could improve and grow.

“While working with financial institutions is great, we are responsible for sharing where the areas to improve are with them. We found 25-34 year olds are relatively new to understanding how to pay bills, so we are ensuring we help educate these people,” Amor said.

“When BPAY launched over 20 years ago, we implemented an education campaign to explain how BPAY made paying bills easier via banks. These young adults would have been too young at the time to be paying bills and so it’s not surprising it’s their parents whom are more likely to be using BPAY.

“Now they’re well into adulthood, moved out and are taking care of their own bills. We want to make sure BPAY continues to be trusted and used among this age group.

“We know they are aware of BPAY, but they may not know why it’s the best method to help pay their bills. It’s also getting more cluttered in terms of payment methods in the ecosystem, so we have the opportunity have a bit of fun to differentiate ourselves in this cluttered market.”

Having a bit of fun led BPAY to a natural fit with well-know radio duo, Hamish and Andy. BPAY has teamed up to create a podcast through PodcastOne in their latest campaign to let Aussies know why they are Australia’s preferred way to pay bills. 

“Hamish and Andy are talking to the same customers we are trying to talk to, and they are funny, so it’s a perfect fit with our brand, which has always had humour behind it.

“We are going to amplify this campaign through our financial institution members, alongside a competition, and with education materials.”

The four-week partnership includes BPAY’s Bill of Fortune competition, which ran in mid May. The campaign will be supported on radio, social, YouTube, Gmail and PR.

“We have our own media campaign behind this, using social mainly, which fits perfectly with our target audience. Hamish and Andy also receive one million listeners a month as it is, so the partnership with them and Southern Cross, while amplified through financial institutions, is directly to customers as well,” she told CMO.

“To measure success, we’ll be looking at traditional media metrics, as well as weekly brand health.

“This is our latest campaign, but, really, we don’t really ever stop marketing, because there’s a lot of marketing that comes out of financial institutions, which originates with us.

“BPAY provides a level of consistency across the banks, we work with them to build on top of our base level product to appeal to the different types of customer experience (CX) their particular customer sets may prefer.

“So in this way, BPAY is already looking at how our product can be tailored in different ways, so rather than working directly with customers, we work with the institutions who will then improve the CX from their end.

“What this end up looking like depends on the situation and the bank, but the beauty of it is, it’s already 100 per cent online, so it’s already positioned for an on-demand generation. It’s also mobile friendly, often enabled in just one click - depending on the bank – and we are in the process of product optimisation and finding new ways to help financial institutions to move that forward.

“We are lucky, this all happens in a very collaborative way, it’s a very unique organisation that way. Of course, the security around it and the confidentiality and keeping the customers’ data secure is paramount.”

Last year, BPAY Group launched Osko. The overall brand strategy is to position Osko by BPAY as “a new way for Australians to pay” with the core brand attributes ‘faster, universal, 24/7 payments’.

As Osko launched with only Osko payments, the brand needed to be established to drive not only initial use of Osko Payments, but for adoption of the future services as they roll out. There is also a need to provide education on the functionality of each service and benefits for both end users and the payments industry, and staff of financial institutions.

“We launched it October last year, so we are monitoring that as well, and it’s growing. Around 60 banks are on board so far. This was a four-year product development, across multiple financial institutions. It was a phenomenal process to be involved in, and we learned a lot.”

As for BPAY, consumers will see more brand activity in the coming six months.

“We want to make sure people understand it’s the preferred way to pay bills no matter what bank you are with, and this is actually unique to us in Australia.

“It’s about maintaining position, and not forgetting some young people haven’t had the education the older generations have had around finances. We are very conscious of not forgetting new generations need to understand BPAY and where it fits in their lives.”

Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO conversation on LinkedIn: CMO ANZ, join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia, or check us out on Google+: google.com/+CmoAu 

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