"Yes. The Hypothecary." One of Holland's best-known and most consistent advertising slogans.
De Hypotheker is the Netherlands' largest mortgage advice organization specialized in selecting, advising and realizing mortgages. Since 1985, De Hypotheker has helped more than a million customers with the biggest purchase in their lives; their (t)house. STROOM has been working for this authority in financial services for many years.
We address the question in this case; how do you make sure you are top of mind with consumers for one of the most important purchases of your life? The campaign targeted first-time buyers in the housing market, translating the message sympathetically and broadly to: "Everything you do for the first time is difficult. That's why you could use some help with your first mortgage'.
STRATEGY
The objective for STROOM was to help De Hypotheker increase brand awareness and brand preference among the starters target group. Buying a house is a new experience for starters and they could use some help with this. De Hypotheker is the authority on independent advice and wants to share its knowledge with this target group. It has created a series of short online videos for the 'Jazekerweten' campaign. These explain in an accessible way all kinds of topics concerning your mortgage. For first-time buyers, there are special videos about your maximum mortgage, student debt and what are 'buyer's costs'. The TV campaign aimed to point starters to these useful videos on the website of De Hypotheker. In addition, it was important that De Hypotheker would remain top of mind among the broad group of homebuyers throughout the year.
To achieve broad reach in the target audience, we recommended a combination of television and radio, complementing De Hypotheker's online resources. With multiple campaign weeks over a longer period of time, we wanted to continuously keep De Hypotheker in the spotlight. This 'always-on' strategy is in line with the theory of Byron Sharp and Daniel Kahneman, in which you work on increasing mental availability and brand salience: the moment it becomes relevant to the homebuyer, he must immediately think of De Hypotheker.
MEDIA PLANNING
To load the De Hypotheker brand with the target audience, a broad channel selection was chosen on both radio and television. This built a high reach and further increased the authority of the brand. The broad use gives room for growth: non- and light users are also reached. In this way it is possible to maintain brand awareness. The recognizability of the communication was reinforced by clever use of the 'Visual Transfer' effect (= effect that occurs through consistent use of the same voice/music of the TV spot in the radio commercial. Upon hearing the radio spot, the image of the TV commercial comes to the fore). Radio remains a strong medium to build awareness alongside television while generating traffic to the site. The radio campaign took into account the 'Starters' target group by also targeting selective youth stations such as SLAM!
RESULT
The Starter Campaign ran between September 2020 and February 2021. During this period, a high reach was achieved on television of over 82% in the target audience (8 million people) with an average of 8 contacts. On radio, the reach reached 77% net reach (7.5 million people) with 12 contacts.
Wonderful numbers for a strong campaign.
The effect measurement conducted by BlueField in the fall of 2020 showed that the media choices were very effective. The commercial provided clear information and prompted the Starters target group to take action. The number of appointments through the site and in the branches continued to increase during the campaign period. TOMA (Top Of Mind Awareness) increased by approximately 10% and Spontaneous Awareness by 26% compared to the previous campaign. Brand awareness of De Hypotheker remained at a high level of over 65%. The slogan "Yes, De Hypotheker" continues to grow as a strong association with De Hypotheker.
We are pleased with the results achieved and proud of the long, pleasant cooperation with the client. Also with the follow-up campaign on the horizon, we will help further build one of the Netherlands' best known and strongest brands: De Hypotheker.