The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year (EOY) programme was established more than 30 years ago and today operates in 65 countries and territories and 145 cities around the world.

Local country and territory EY Entrepreneur Of The Year winners compete in Monaco each year for the title of EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year (WEOY).

When the pandemic struck and made the 3-day Monaco event untenable, we had to pivot from a physical event to a digital experience.  The pandemic had presented the chance to self-disrupt, which EY seized.  With continued uncertainty in 2021 we decided to build on the success we had seen with the digital awards show the previous year. The key challenge remained; How would a virtual award ceremony ever replace the experiential quality of a visit to one of the most glamorous locations in Europe, with 800 of the world’s most exceptional entrepreneurs?

At the face-to face event, people could mingle and learn about the winning candidates.  We needed a creative media solution that created a ‘real’ connection with the finalists.

The overarching objective of the campaign was to drive continued awareness of EY’s brand leadership in Entrepreneurship among CEOs, owners, founders and entrepreneurs and their key influencers.

CNBC was selected as a partner based on their high reach and affinity with our global C-Suite and Entrepreneurial audiences and strong broadcast and quality production credentials.

In collaboration with CNBC Catalyst, EY combined documentary style content and a virtual award show. The documentaries were shot on location with the entrepreneurs in cinematically interesting and relevant environments.

The content showcased inspirational entrepreneurial stories from around the world and the profiles of EOY/WEOY participants and alumni.  We created content to engage our audience; stories from entrepreneurs who were innovating and providing relief from the COVID-19 pandemic

CNBC Catalyst produced and broadcast the live global awards show on CNBC.com. The show itself and subsequent winner announcements were truly an amazing feat of collaboration, scale, coordination, and precision timing.  Managing multiple stakeholders and time zones, ensuring content didn’t go live until the winner had been announced, developing a flexible media plan that allowed us to quickly dial up promotion in certain locations depending on the award results.

Content development included a 27-minute live results show hosted by CNBC presenter Emma Crosby, an 8-minute awards highlights videos and a 60” winner announcement spot.  It also featured an appearance from HRH The Prince of Wales as EY honoured him with an inaugural EY Social Entrepreneurship Award.

Pre and post event content also included traffic driving banners, rich media units and social cards. EY opted to supplement the award ceremony with a mini documentary about the finalists. Called The Unstoppables, which profiled entrepreneurs in engaging and insightful ways, and this turned out to be key in transforming the event as a whole.

A content hub (www.CNBC.com/weoy) provided the on-demand results show, winner profiles and other EY entrepreneurial content.

The 2021 campaign reached over 33 million viewers and generated 67 million impressions. It achieved 50 million video views of The Unstoppables 2 and reached 24 million people.

Research was commissioned by CNBC and executed by Global Web Index, measured the impact and effectiveness of the ‘The Unstoppables’ activity specifically.

It showed:

• Full exposure to the campaign on CNBC led to a 30% uplift on brand consideration
• Brand positivity increased by 39% points
• Fully exposed audiences were 4.8x more likely to associate EY with advising entrepreneurs than those not exposed.
• 88% of those aware of EY recognized The Unstoppables creative (CNBC benchmark for all campaigns is 46%).

In addition, EY data showed:

• Applications to EY Entrepreneur Of The Year in the 10 weeks around the winner announcement in 2021 multiplied over three times — from 120 to 538 — in the same time period over the previous year.

Following a successful global brand re-launch that focused on asking Life’s ‘questions’- in 2017, all eyes were on UBS.

For the next stage in the marketing strategy, the bank recognized a need to refocus communications and promote their thought leadership capabilities.

Objectives:
1. Position UBS as a thought leader and expert in financial services
2. Humanize, modernize and differentiate the bank
3. Drive positive perception

In order to overcome these challenges, some key questions needed to be asked: What did UBS want to be known for in 2017? What business objectives did they need to highlight publicly? What did they want existing/potential clients
to engage with?

UBS wanted to create true thought leadership through clear, consistent, relevant and valuable content however in order to do this effectively, also recognized a need to focus on fewer topics but provide deeper depth.
There were multiple challenges starting this approach. With three parts to the UBS business (Wealth Management, Investment Bank and Asset Management) there were a variety of senior stakeholders to align. With many divisions also came varying target audiences (HNWI, professional & institutional investors and entrepreneurs/affluent millennials). It was crucial that the 2017 communication themes not only engaged multiple audiences with consistent messaging but also met business objectives across all siloes.

To be successful, the campaign needed:

• High visibility to the right audience
• Strong engagement to drive real awareness
• Communications to be focused and drive to business objectives
• To create connections both in ecosystem and with audience.But how could we ensure topic authority, minimize competitive noise, and communicate at scale?

The campaign focused on 6 markets (UK, Germany, Switzerland, US, Hong Kong and Singapore).

Using a number of data strategies, Spark Foundry first matched the highest traffic categories on leading financial publications against UBS’ potential topic themes in order to identify the categories that would be most effective to
target in media.

This involved reviewing search data to determine which publications held highest authority in each of the themes, social engagement analysis to gain insight into what people were most interested in and audience ‘tribe’ analysis to establish the groups of audiences interested.

Finally, an integrated content ecosystem was created to demonstrate how these themes interconnected with other thought-leadership at the bank, so we could make use of their existing assets and create a solid user journey throughout UBS content off-site or back to UBS.com, should the reader wish to keep exploring – also supporting SEO.

The conclusion of this analysis and workshopping with UBS resulted with ‘Sustainable Investing (SI)’ and ‘Investing in China’ being identified as the core business communication objectives for 2017.

The strategy surrounding each of these areas was to:
Build on existing knowledge and highlight UBS’ expertise within the (relatively new asset class), ‘Sustainable Investing’
Drive awareness of the banks expertise in China and the importance of how China can impact investment portfolios directly or indirectly.

Using a bespoke Spark Foundry designed scoring sheet, the agency scored 24 potential partners and workshopped each partner in Switzerland with UBS until deciding upon 3 publishers.

These publishers were proven to have the credibility to help strengthen UBS’ authority on each topic, access to the breadth of audience needed to create an interconnected communication ecosystem across the bank’s 3 business
areas, as well as the expertise to help meet the overall campaign objectives; CNBC, The Wall Street Journal and Mashable. In order to utilize the budget effectively and efficiently, communications needed to be launched
strategically.

To reduce wastage, the strategy was to focus on x2 core themes, across 3 publishers, and interconnect all activity to keep users engaged within a UBS content ecosystem.

A content calendar connecting topical world events across the year and helped build our ‘thought leader’ reputation and benefit from global discussion.

The campaign exceeded expectations. During week one, 16,569 unique visitors (UV) visited the content viewing 21,936 pages. The average session duration was impressive – 5m 3s compared to Economist Group’s average of 2m
30s for engagement with infographics. Providing content in a visual format and launching it at a critical point during COP23 with a highly targeted social media campaign was working.

The high profile ‘Spotlight’ position on the EIU Perspectives website and increased impression numbers saw traffic rise further by 69% to 28,076 UV in week three. Even though COP23 had ended and the campaign was finishing, EI
Advisory decided to continue amplification as heavily as budget allowed; engagement increased again to 41,217 visits.

All parties then decided to trial different formats for organic social media promotion. A short video for the infographic content was quickly produced with video views increasing engagement through Twitter/Facebook.

On completion, a staggering 55,527 UV had visited the content spending an average of 6m 14s. 24% of those viewers returned (approx. 13,300), their dwell time increased to 10m 21s.
The content performed well in all target markets: 7,723 UV in EMEA, 17,875 in the Americas, 30,832 in APAC.
The advertising campaign on economist.com outperformed industry benchmarks with a clickthrough of 0.22% (300 x
250 unit) and 0.38% (970 x 250).
LinkedIn and Twitter were the best performing social platforms – 20,353 and 23,444 UV respectively – with 93% of traffic from mobile devices. This demonstrates that senior decision makers will engage with content promoted on social if compelling, timely and relevant.

Key influencers in the green finance debate also took notice, notably the Chief Economist, Department of International Trade, proving that the campaign had succeeded in raising the profile of Green Evaluations and S&P Global Ratings’ position at the forefront of this topical debate.

Credit Suisse is a bank steeped in heritage and well respected within the financial services sector. As with most of the sector however, this traditional positioning can also be seen as an inhibitor against an increasingly fast paced and dynamic backdrop. To remain top of mind, the business has begun to reposition itself with a new forward-thinking approach as a progressive bank of the future.

Credit Suisse has a strong belief that large leaps in progression across technology and business are down to a select few individuals within industry – the entrepreneurs. Those that will run the influential businesses of the future and require a bank to match. Credit Suisse set out to prove their credentials and show how much of a valuable partner they are.

Briefed to challenge the traditional image that is associated with Swiss banks and change the perception of Credit Suisse amongst entrepreneurs, the ‘bank of the future’ proposition was introduced.

A commitment of this scale requires a suitable platform. The World Economic Forum in Davos was selected as the launch moment for the campaign due to its importance on the financial and economic calendar. It is the single largest meet of the world’s most influential people and leaders, where announcements hold weighted significance.

The creative arm Havas London created a topical strapline for the campaign -‘ What Happens in Davos, Shouldn’t Stay in Davos’. Aside from the literal interpretation of projecting a message outside of the physical boundaries, this
also hinted towards the future, encouraging people to contemplate what comes next.

The target audience comprised of High net-worth, business individuals that are consistently keeping up to date with the changing world around them. Their media consumption habits are defined as time poor and on-the-go; they
have higher than average time spent on mobile due to frequent travel requirements resulting in reduced desktop access. To effectively target those at WEF, it was essential to be able to serve content on mobile and tablet, which
they would be able to see between each event.

Two strategies were applied to change perception amongst entrepreneurs:
Visible commitment had to be shown by announcing the message across high impact media, with publishers who would have presence on the ground at Davos. Although this tactic is routed within traditional broadcast principles, the large media spend was designed to install trust and intent to follow through to the promise amongst a savvy audience.

Trusted media brands were utilised to provide third party proof points and built stature, by creating an additional layer of content mirroring Credit Suisse’s message from a different perspective. A combination of top tier global
publishers were selected that provide trusted, reliable content and access to assets that would be highly influential to the higher tiers of decision makers in business and entrepreneurship.

To ensure those already successful weren’t the only ones targeted, the messaged was projected on a global scale to reach the budding C-Suites and entrepreneurs of the future.

Traditional awareness driving provided comprehensive stature and coverage at Davos WEF and was far above the visibility of any other brand. Colleagues on the ground reported back that our message was truly unmissable during
the week – with a copy of our branded Bloomberg edition also being spotted under the arm of Bill Gates!

The mobile 360* unit results provided the evidence that the target audience showed an active interest in Credit Suisse. The highly sophisticated mobile activity provided remarkable results, with an engagement rate 163% above
the industry benchmark, and a dwell time of over one minute (Celtra European benchmark at the time was 9.22 seconds). This result was very encouraging, proving the relevance of the campaign, and channel selection amongst
the highly influential audience.

Consumption of content on CNBC exceeded all benchmarks significantly: double the benchmark dwell time with individual pieces of content, 55% higher engagement across social channels than CNBC benchmark and a VTR rate
of 80%. In addition to this a connect study ran by CNBC showed that 85% of respondents felt that the partnership was beneficial to their perception of Credit Suisse. These engagement figures prove that leveraging the combining
the strengths of both publisher and brand was a highly effective way to position Credit Suisse as future facing partner for entrepreneurs.

This integrated approach to merging both traditional and digital media proved to be a compelling form of communication for a heritage brand looking to future proof itself. Evolutions of the communications architecture are
being replicated for future campaigns and content themes are being expanded and developed for secondary phases
– providing the next step in the journey to prove Credit Suisse as the ‘bank of the future’.