Title	UPGRADE - BANKING AT AI LEVEL
Brand	UNICREDIT BANK
Product/Service	UPGRADE BANKING SERVICE FROM UNICREDIT BANK
Category	B07. Use of Events & Stunts
Entrant	UNICREDIT TIRIAC BANK Bucharest, ROMANIA
Idea Creation	UNICREDIT TIRIAC BANK Bucharest, ROMANIA
Media Placement	MEDIACOM Bucharest, ROMANIA
PR	GRAFFITI PR ROMANIA Bucharest, ROMANIA

Name	Company	Position
Alexandru Aron; Mihai Coliban; Ada Teslaru; Cristina Petcu; Dana Alexandru	Graffiti Public Relations	Creative Director; Creative Director; Director of Possibilities; Creative Planner; PR Specialist

Why is this work relevant for PR?

Turned the idea of a PR stunt into the orchestration of a WORLD PREMIERE. Created a WOW PR launch event that exceeded all communication KPIs. In terms of creative business results, we succeeded to boost both deposits and loans volumes, surpassing initial business KPIs. Introduced a new banking service via a never seen before demonstration of the product benefit – brought UniCredit Bank’s Upgrade service model forward by showing how even the most advanced humanoid AI robot, Sophia, can have her life upgraded even further by receiving a UCB credit card for her to go shopping on her approaching vacation.

Background

Introduce Upgrade, a new banking service model targeting the most important clients of UniCredit Bank Romania (UCB), to the Affluents’ customers segment: those who entered the UniCredit Bank universe at 1 - 3K euro income/month and were now stepping up towards >4K euro. If the launch was to be loud in terms of both quality and quantity, the new banking product could positively impact the over-all business of UCB in terms of loans and deposits’ volumes. Communication objectives: Engage 300 affluent clients @the launch event Nation-wide awareness 100 articles Reach 5 MM Romanians Business objectives: [confidential] Increase loans vol +5% Increase deposits vol +15% [confidential] All in all, we needed to launch a new product, we were facing a challenging consumer target, and the expectations to boost both brand and business were high. We had to find the point of maximum impact and build our launch event accordingly.

Describe the creative idea

Here are some crazy thoughts: deliver the ultimate demo of the product benefit. Spell UPGRADE from product to influencer. Orchestrate a world premiere! Launch Upgrade by upgrading the life of the most advanced humanoid robot out there – Sophia the AI Robot. How? Make her owner of a UniCredit Bank credit card. Can’t be done? Guess again. Research and creative planning were extensive, and it’s true that we couldn’t have pulled it off if Sophia had not been given citizenship of Saudi Arabia in October 2017 – as UniCredit Bank could not have issued a valid card to any R2D2 lookalike riding down the street with no ID whatsoever. So when Sophia would be in town as a speaker for Brand Minds – largest annual business summit in CEE, we were to build the ultimate consumer launch event around her presence and interaction with UniCredit Romania and, of course, Upgrade.

Describe the strategy

Internal UniCredit Bank studies revealed an interesting fact about Affluents: when you earn more, you afford more – and unlock a new lifestyle, with new prices/rules/opportunities, you want your bank to step up its game and convince you of its upgraded approach on banking servicing that can help you deal with all this newness. A valuable insight that delivered us the key to our approach. We needed the ultimate message vehicle/influencer to spell U P G R A D E to our Affluents and potential Affluent clients, as a crisp and clear demonstration of how a life can be upgraded by UCB, even after previously skyrocket evolving. We needed a consumer launch to make prime time news, yet not via a Ripley’s Believe It or Not type of comms gimmick, but an A-class activation to build brand and deliver an A-HA moment when pulling the curtain on the new product.

Describe the execution

On May 10th we launched Upgrade, our new service model together with: 400 affluent clients, 11 top media and 1 AI Robot to become the owner of a UniCredit Bank card. Such a historical moment needed a historical frame. High standards met top-notch tech KOLs, at The Romanian National Museum of Art, within the Romanian Royal Palace. George Buhnici, leading Romanian voice on tech&auto (>500K fans) hosted the event. He shared the encounter with Sophia on all owned digital channels and featured an interview with her on iLikeIT, the most popular tech&gadgets TV show in Romania. The country tuned in to see Sophia on Romania’s no.1 station – PRO TV, which aired a 50” spot of the launch and the historical moment when she was handed the card by a top UniCredit representative. Her testimonial was broadcasted @Brand Minds for CEE C-level business audience and published across UCB digital channels.

List the results

Upgrade reached 6.7 million Romanians via 135 online, print, radio and TV features, worth 144K media value, and 400 Affluents were present at the historical event. The launch exceeded all initial communication KPIs. Social media was taken by storm by hundreds of futuristic selfies taken with Sophia at the event, that boosted social avatars of UniCredit Bank’s strategic clients’ segment. Furthermore, Sophia’s testimonial gathered more than 1MM views on UniCredit Bank’s Youtube channel.