Objective

Mizuho Bank provides financial and corporate strategy to large domestic and global companies. Its marketing audience is small, senior and hard to reach: the people who decide where a multinational banks.

The commission was to analyse existing marketing and advertising activity and recommend how it could be improved against the bank's aims. That is a research brief, not a design one, and the honest answer to it might be spend less.

Creative response

Analysis of previous marketing activity, cross-referenced against the online and offline behaviour of the target audiences, then a costed review of the channels available to reach them.

• Audience behaviour, mapped. Existing activity cross-referenced with where the target audience actually is, online and off
• Out-of-home, costed. London taxi advertising priced across formats: supersides at £52,000 for 200 taxis over a month, full liveries at £185,000 for 100 taxis over six
• Trade press, costed. IFR weekly covers, special covers and Review of the Year covers, with conference and roundtable options alongside
• Digital and social rates. Online advertising rates including CPM pricing, and platform options across social and video
• Middle East options. A separate regional section
• A recommendation. LinkedIn, with a specific mechanic: time the advertising so that a prospect sees Mizuho content in the week before the new-business team meets them

• Audience behaviour, mapped. Existing activity cross-referenced with where the target audience actually is, online and off
• Out-of-home, costed. London taxi advertising priced across formats: supersides at £52,000 for 200 taxis over a month, full liveries at £185,000 for 100 taxis over six
• Trade press, costed. IFR weekly covers, special covers and Review of the Year covers, with conference and roundtable options alongside
• Digital and social rates. Online advertising rates including CPM pricing, and platform options across social and video
• Middle East options. A separate regional section
• A recommendation. LinkedIn, with a specific mechanic: time the advertising so that a prospect sees Mizuho content in the week before the new-business team meets them

Results

MAY 2019, delivered

£52K–£185K, the out-of-home options priced

LINKEDIN, what was actually recommended

The recommendation is the interesting part. Having priced taxi liveries at up to £185,000, the document lands on LinkedIn, and justifies it on targeting precision rather than cost: the ability to put content in front of named senior people at named organisations, timed against the new-business team's diary.

That is a media-planning argument made by a design and digital function, and it argues against the most visible spend on the table.

The work