Barclays Corporate Banking wanted to reinforce their position as the banking partner that supports European business and innovation, with deep sector expertise delivered through a personal relationship.

Targeting C-suites and financial business decision-makers across Europe, the bank wanted to drive client leads and
marketing ROI for the business, whilst increasing brand favourability and consideration.

Key industries for the bank included: professional services, technology, media, manufacturing, transport and
logistics, retail, hospitality and leisure, healthcare and public sector and business services based in the UK, Portugal,
Spain, France, Germany and Ireland.

Barclays wanted to create compelling and relevant content to position the bank as pan-European and ‘open for
business’. To be successful, the campaign needed to drive engagement among the target audience with relevant
content amplified through a cross-platform, multi-content partnership.

Barclays was keen to generate engagement through interactive channels such as live events and podcasts in order to
further reinforce their position as the banking partner that offers a one-to-one relationship, giving the European
financial community the confidence they need to make an educated investing decision or trade.

The year 2018 brought with it a host of domestic and global challenges for Europe. From the looming prospect of
Brexit, to the enforcement GDPR and seismic impact of emerging technologies, European businesses were (and still
are) on the verge of a dramatic transformation. As the world’s largest multimedia news provider, Reuters was
perfectly placed to identify the key topics affecting European financial decision makers, to provide an expert view on
preparing for the changes to come.

Capitalising on Reuters unrivalled coverage and access to over 2.6 million C-suites and key financial decision makers
across the target markets, Reuters Plus (the award-winning branded content arm of Reuters), created ‘Tomorrow’s
Europe’, a bespoke event and content series including a live panel discussion and a series of podcasts, articles and
videos, accompanied by a highly targeted digital advertising campaign across Reuters premium platforms and social
channels.

To ensure that the content would drive engagement with the target audience, Reuters Plus worked closely with
OMD, Barclays and a range of experts to research relevant topics which informed the 6 key themes: GDPR, Fintech,
European populism, crypto assets, cybercrime and blockchain. Each theme was explored with a long form article
and accompanying podcast with expert speakers from a range of industries.

Since user engagement was the primary KPI of the campaign, metrics such as podcast listens, dwell time and event
attendance were critical to ensure the campaign delivered on the client’s communication objectives. Furthermore,
the thematic approach ensured that the Barclays brand was aligned with a range of timely topics demonstrating
their commitment to innovation and enterprise across Europe.

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The ‘Tomorrow’s Europe’ program overperformed against all campaign targets. Over 4.3 million impressions were
delivered over the campaign period across all target markets with over 47K unique clicks to the hub. The average
session duration far exceeded the Reuters benchmark, at 4.52 minutes compared with the average of 2 minutes.
Digital promotion generated 6.5K unique listens of the podcast with the most popular podcast on GDPR having
generated an additional 89K listens between October 2018 and February 2019, proving that relevant, timely themes
resonate with the Reuters audience.

Social amplification generated over 1.5 million impressions, exceeding our benchmarks with an engagement rate of
2.61% and CTR of 2.97%.

Over 140 attendees registered to attend the invite-only panel discussion in Berlin, with 58 attending on the night,
including senior-level individuals from Allianz Deutschland, Blackstone, BMW Group, Bombardier Transportation,
Booking.com, Deutsche Bank, Nexus Energie, PayPal Salesforce and Verizon.

The post-campaign brand study revealed that 79% of Reuters users expressed a positive view of the campaign, with
31% considering the campaign informative and 29% interesting. Forty-two percent of users surveyed agreed that
Barclays Corporate Banking is a respected brand, which rose to 52% among those exposed to the campaign. Among
those who had engaged with ‘Tomorrow’s Europe’ hub, the perception of Barclays as an ‘innovative’ brand increased
by 89%, with 8/10 people considering the key campaign message to be ‘demonstrating Barclays’ capabilities’.

This demonstrates that through creating compelling, relevant content delivered through a multi-platform strategy,
Reuters was able to achieve targeted engagement and positive brand exposure of Barclays Corporate Banking
amongst C-suites and key financial business makers across Europe, to help them prepare for the changes to come.