In 2020 and 2021, with the emergence of COVID-19, user behavior and insights across most industries underwent significant changes. As a result, most Lunar New Year 2022 campaigns leveraged these changes to refresh their holiday messages and address new consumer insights.

Read more: Ảnh hưởng của COVID 19 đến thảo luận Tết

As a brand in the banking sector, VPBank also invested in messaging and approach to compete in the Tet campaign race alongside over 100 other brands from various industries. In 2022, VPBank’s campaign “Living Full Personal Prosperity” skillfully tapped into the narrative around the pandemic, thereby connecting with consumers. It can be said that this was the most successful Tet campaign in the banking sector. The campaign helped VPBank secure the second position in the Banking industry ranking (according to YMI) and become the Tet campaign with the highest user discussion participation within the banking sector.

What made “Living Full Personal Prosperity” and VPBank achieve these accomplishments?

1. Meaningful and Adaptable Messaging in the Context of the Pandemic 

Context: 

Over the Tet holidays of 2020 and 2021, financial difficulties were consistently the biggest concern for consumers. Especially during Tet 2021, “financial hardship” was the most discussed topic among concerns expressed by users, far surpassing the second most discussed issue, “worries about not being able to reunite with family.” This created an opportunity for brands in the financial sector, such as VPBank, to address this key consumer pain point and, in doing so, foster deeper engagement with users on social media.

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“Financial worries” are the biggest concern for consumers. Interestingly, however, when it comes to users’ expectations for Tet, “Finance & Career” does not rank in the top three. Instead, the prominent expectations are “Happiness,” “Health,” and “Safety/Peace.”

This intriguing contradiction stems from COVID-19. The pandemic context has made users realize that “Health comes first” and, amid hardship, many users pay more attention to well-being. According to users, even if the economy is difficult this Tet, maintaining health and enjoying family togetherness is more important. Additionally, after a year filled with challenges, users tend to avoid discussing overly sad or emotional topics, as this goes against the cheerful Tet atmosphere and the desire to start the new year with positive energy.

Thus, the challenge for brands during Tet 2022 is finding a balance: not being overly sentimental, but also not excessively cheerful, in order to connect effectively with the complex emotions of users during the holiday.

For VPBank, this challenge is even tougher: how to “tell a financial story without making users feel heavy or worried, while still generating a sense of positivity for the new year.”

Solution:

It is clear that consumers’ expectations and concerns this year both posed challenges and created opportunities for VPBank. In this context, VPBank skillfully positioned its brand and industry presence with the message “Living Full Personal Prosperity.” Specifically, instead of guiding people toward a general concept of prosperity—typically associated with financial and career prospects—VPBank framed “prosperity” from multiple perspectives. Prosperity can mean financial well-being. It can also refer to physical and mental health. Prosperity can mean pursuing one’s passions. In other words, prosperity means living according to—or achieving—each person’s individual expectations.

This smart approach allowed VPBank to broaden the concept of prosperity, linking it to diverse areas of concern. This not only helped VPBank avoid being “limited to finance,” but also made the message more open and encouraged users to participate in sharing their own stories with the brand.

Overall, VPBank is among the brands that timely recognized current difficulties and skillfully crafted a message that “fully captures” the expectations of all consumer segments. In doing so, the brand built a positive message that easily generates viral engagement on social media.

2. A structured social media storytelling strategy that sparks user-generated content

To amplify its message of prosperity, VPBank designed a campaign with a well-organized set of tactics: (1) launching with a minigame to capture attention, (2) deploying an emotional video to maintain momentum and help users easily grasp the message, and (3) combining online and offline activities to maximize reach.

First, VPBank leveraged KOLs and community pages to share diverse perspectives on prosperity, helping spread the campaign message. Next, VPBank launched a minigame where consumers defined prosperity in their own way, using both words and images. The minigame generated over 2,300 discussions about personal definitions of prosperity, accounting for 30% of total campaign conversations.

n the emotional video sustaining campaign momentum, VPBank partnered with Khoai Lang Thang to present four definitions of prosperity, summarizing various perspectives. The video attracted over 7 million views on YouTube and triggered two positive consumer reactions: one group enjoyed the brand’s presented definitions of prosperity, while another participated by defining prosperity in their own way.

Beyond online activities, VPBank also “localized” offline ad content to better connect with users, especially customers in Ho Chi Minh City. The brand designed key visuals and installed them as billboards in major districts. Each district featured specific descriptive lines reflecting local characteristics while incorporating the brand’s prosperity message. This offered a unique way to tell the story of “Personal Prosperity” according to geographic context and reached an additional 1 million people per day.  

3. Conclusion

According to Buzzmetrics, each campaign has its own goals and KPIs to determine “success.” However, even ignoring strict KPI metrics, the “Living Full Personal Prosperity” campaign succeeded in capturing attention and generating earned media through social media virality. The three key takeaways from this campaign are: (1) addressing users’ core concerns, (2) organizing tactics effectively, and (3) selecting an open-ended message that skillfully encourages user participation and sharing.

Buzzmetrics hopes this brief analysis of the “Living Full Personal Prosperity” campaign helps you better understand the campaign and provides actionable insights for future initiatives.