Shortlisted 2023
Financial Services
Brand
Invest Europe
Entered by:
Invest Europe
A Different Angle: Funding people, With Purpose
Credited:
BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions
The Challenge
The European private equity and venture capital industry manages €846 billion of assets employing 10.5 million people across Europe, 4.5% of the region’s workforce.
Most people come into contact with a product or service from a company backed by private equity or venture capital every single day, yet they don’t know it.
Many of the brands we love, services we rely upon, and companies we work for benefit from private equity expertise and capital to enable them to flourish and meet our needs.
Yet the industry’s contribution to jobs, innovation, funding better retirements, and driving positive societal change can be often overlooked or misunderstood.
In October 2021, Invest Europe, the world’s largest association of private equity and venture capital providers, embarked on an ambitious media partnership with BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions to compellingly communicate the cornerstone role the private equity and venture capital industry plays for both the European economy and its society.
Its objective: to accurately inform and shift perceptions of the work we do and the people and companies we back.
The Content Solution
‘A Different Angle’ is an online 9-film series exploring the role of private equity and venture capital in European society. This unique film series, presented by Invest Europe and produced by BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions, brings to screen the human stories at the heart of the businesses that are driving change and fuelling growth through private capital.
Translating the private equity and venture capital sector into a film series had never been done before. It was an unfamiliar exercise for an industry used to focusing solely on financial and investors communications.
A Different Angle aims to raise awareness about the expertise injected into businesses alongside capital, and how profit and purpose, such as high social and environmental goals, can work in harmony to produce better returns for investors and society.
Alongside four first-mover Invest Europe members – the European Investment Fund, IQ Capital, Mid Europa Partners and Coller Capital – a 9-film, 12-month series was launched in two waves, supported by a dedicated online campaign and regular reporting to track the impact of our partnership and its exploration of the role of our industry in Europe.
The Media/Content Amplification Solution
Invest Europe chose to partner with BBC StoryWorks because of their capacity to explain complex topics and provide next-level online visual content that engages with key audiences. By leveraging BBC StoryWorks feature-film grade content, and extensive social media outreach, Invest Europe was able to reach new audiences and engage them in their message. The BBC’s global brand recognition was also a decisive factor in securing financial and content backing from Invest Europe Members.
The success of this campaign was due in large part to BBC StoryWorks’ expertise in helping create content that resonates with viewers and drives engagement. The films featured compelling stories and characters, with a cinematic approach that was tailored to the platform on which each film was shared.
This was further amplified by their ability to target audiences across multiple channels, from the BBC own media website to their Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. Invest Europe quickly discovered that as its Media Partner, BBC StoryWorks’ social media outreach was indeed the make-or-break factor when it came to making this campaign a success on social media.
The Result
Launched in October and November 2021 and ran over a period of 12 months, this 9-film series broke all records.
The series showed phenomenal engagement on the BBC Global Social Media channels with 2.8 million impressions and 1.9 million total views at 3s. With 655,000 video views at 25%, the series has recorded the highest 25% view rate from impression compared to any other campaign the BBC has run: 23.4% of audiences who saw a post on the BBC Global Social Media channels went on to watch the first 25% of a film. Other campaigns average 6.86%. There were 162,600 video completions meaning that 5.81% of audiences completed films from impressions. Other campaigns average 1.44% or 3.3x less. Finaly, the series secured 274,500 engagements on social media channels.
It secured 94.3 million impressions across BBC.com audiences and 135,656 clicks through to website with a CTR of 0.14% – the industry benchmark being 0.1%. The highest number of clicks have been recorded in Spain, Ireland, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.
The series’ campaign hubs on BBC.com and InvestEurope.eu secured 256,423 page views, with a 61.6% homepage bounce rate and a 33.9% film bounce rate on BBC.com. The average time spent on the BBC.com homepage was 6’12”, showing that audiences were engaged in the topic. The film series represented one of the main drivers to the Invest Europe website
Content testing via Science of Engagement (SoE), a bespoke research tool developed for BBC Global News that measures the emotional impact of content through monitoring viewers’ facial expressions, eye-tracking and explicit questioning, showed that a single film managed to shift perception towards PE/VC by close to +50% on average.