[JUDGING] Bank of Ireland
Section: Social Media Strategy: Brand
Organisation Name: Bank of Ireland
General Strategy Questions
Name Of Brand Client
Bank of Ireland
Name Of Brand Client Copy
This is our ongoing social strategy
Personpeople Who Led This Campaign
Eoin McGirl, Aisling Lavelle and Conor O'Shea
Do You Use Alt Text In Your Images And Caption Your Videos
Videos are captioned so they can be understood without sound, and image-based content uses alt text where the platform supports it. Accessibility is considered during production through clear on-screen text, readable pacing and captions that support, rather than obstruct, the creative. This helps make the content useful to a wider audience while retaining a native social feel.
What Objective For Campaign
Our objective was to increase Bank of Ireland's relevance and consideration among 18 to 34-year-olds in Ireland. Social needed to move beyond distributing campaigns and become a daily brand-building engine, earning attention before people reached an active financial decision.
The audience insight was clear: younger people increasingly discover culture, search for answers and learn about money through social, but many feel financially anxious. Our opportunity was to make Bank of Ireland feel more human and useful without giving up the authority and trust expected of a regulated bank.
We set four priorities: bring our role of Enabling Financial Confidence and Right with you to life through content that empowers, coaches or simplifies; put colleagues, graduates, fraud specialists, creators and sponsorship talent at the centre of the work; use rugby, music and cultural partnerships to create participation rather than passive logo exposure; and connect organic brand-building with paid activity that could support action.
Brand consideration was the intended business outcome. As the supplied reporting measures social behaviour rather than brand lift, we used audience fit, growth, viewing, engagement and traffic as evidence of progress.
Outline Your Strategy For This Campaign
The strategy combined human connection, useful expertise and cultural relevance. Real people explained, demonstrated and participated rather than delivering corporate scripts. This made financial guidance feel accessible while protecting our checked-by-a-bank advantage over unverified money content.
Content had three jobs. Confidence content made topics such as fraud prevention and everyday banking easier to understand. Culture content used rugby, music and joyful moments to earn attention and build warmth. Action content connected that relevance to a product or service when there was a clear audience benefit.
Each channel had a defined role. TikTok was the primary youth, discovery and short-form video channel. Instagram built visual storytelling, partnerships and community. Facebook delivered broad reach and an established community. LinkedIn addressed corporate and professional audiences. Content was adapted rather than copied between them.
Creative followed a first-second discipline: curiosity, relevance and clarity from frame one, with early brand recognition, simple language, vertical video and captions. Organic content built trust and participation, while proven assets were amplified through paid. Performance was assessed against each post's purpose, not one engagement benchmark. Accessibility, consent and compliance were built into delivery.
What Were The Outcomes For This Campaign Metrics Next Question
The strategy built a larger social audience while giving Bank of Ireland a clearer role in-feed.
Growth was strongest on the channels most closely aligned with younger audiences. TikTok followers increased by 91.7% and Instagram by 17.4%. Separate TikTok audience reporting showed that 67% of paid impressions reached people aged 18 to 34, confirming that the channel was reaching the intended audience. LinkedIn also grew by 10.1%, while Facebook maintained its established scale.
The content model became broader and more human. Colleagues, graduates, fraud specialists, creators and sponsorship talent helped the bank explain money, participate in culture and show the people behind the organisation. Rugby and music were treated as sources of audience value, not simply branding opportunities. Useful guidance, joyful content and product activity could therefore work as one connected system.
Across the four platforms, the strategy delivered substantial viewing, engagement and traffic, showing movement from visibility to active response. Organic content and paid amplification also worked together, allowing relevant platform-native assets to scale beyond the existing audience.
These are measurable leading indicators of relevance and consideration.
What Are Your Metrics For This Campaign Real Metrics Please
Reporting period: 25 September 2025 to 31 August 2026.
Across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok:
• 386,783,149 impressions
• 168,807,827 video views
• 1,848,833 engagements
• 856,301 post link clicks
• 265,430 reactions
• 9,913 comments
• 12,313 shares
• 651 published posts
The combined audience increased from 306,469 to 332,002, a gain of 25,533 or 8.3%.
Audience growth by platform:
• TikTok: 5,602 to 10,738, up 5,136 or 91.7%
• Instagram: 31,634 to 37,148, up 5,514 or 17.4%
• LinkedIn: 139,748 to 153,835, up 14,087 or 10.1%
• Facebook: 129,485 to 130,281, up 796 or 0.6%
TikTok reporting for 31 August 2025 to 31 August 2026 recorded 151,081,664 impressions and 1,112,966 completed video views. Of the impressions, 41% reached people aged 18 to 24 and 26% reached people aged 25 to 34, giving a combined 67% aged 18 to 34.
Is There Anything Else You Want To Add Be Brief
This submission covers an ongoing brand strategy, not a single campaign. Its strength is the system behind the output: clear channel roles, repeatable content jobs and one view of how organic brand-building and paid amplification work together.
Humanising Bank of Ireland was a strategic choice, not simply a change in tone. At a time when feeds are becoming more synthetic, real colleagues, graduates, fraud specialists, creators and sponsorship talent gave the content credibility and emotional relevance. The principle was straightforward: use people to earn trust, while retaining the reassurance of information that is checked by a bank.
The strategy also set clear boundaries. We do not joke about people's money worries or trade trust for reach. Consent, accessibility and compliance are part of the creative process. Sponsorship content must create audience value and make Bank of Ireland's role clear, rather than rely on passive logo presence.
The results show that this approach can build scale, audience growth, participation and action across four distinct platforms. They also show the next measurement priority: connecting these strong social indicators to regular audience-level tracking of consideration, brand association and financial confidence.
