Their team has enough ideas and the courage to make decisions that change the way we think about banks. The mobile app itself is so thought out that you want to open it for no reason. The monobank team reached out to us for strategy and creativity.

It’s important for Monobank to consistently show acceleration — gaining more new customers each month than the month before.

In 2019, mono reached an average annual speed of 90 thousand people/month. For a long time, the main sources were performance tools and the referral program.

The monobank team wanted to double the speed — They asked us to review the current customer acquisition strategy and suggest updates if necessary.

“What will happen if nothing changes?”

This question became the starting point of analytics. Our strategists made a forecast where budgets would double to achieve the desired speed, but the approach to advertising would not change.

Historically, mono has attracted mostly people under 35 and has accelerated its growth largely thanks to this group. The forecast showed that in order to grow at the same rate as now, in the next 2 years, the bank should attract every Ukrainian citizen under the age of 25 and every second citizen under the age of 35.

This is impossible. The speed will slow down unless we change our approach and expand our audience.
 

“Bank in your phone is no longer a unique feature”

Banking apps are becoming common. Competition is increasing. Given that monobank's popularity is centered on young people, the brand may lose its association as the “first bank in a phone” for a wider audience.

Massive advertising to a wide audience should help to secure this association and gain an advantage when the category advertises its banking apps.

To make it easier to work with a wide audience, we segmented it according to their willingness to join mono. In in-depth interviews and focus groups, we saw three similar types of people, who were given names.

“Monolovers”

Mono customers who love the brand and are proud to be the first to join. They are happy to share their experience with others.

“Potential monolovers”

This group is the main source of growth right now.

They've heard a lot about mono, seen the app, and recognized the benefits. They are not against becoming a customer, but “Not quite there yet”

“It's okay”

A strategically important group. You need to start talking to them right now to ensure long-term growth.

People who either don't know or have heard but are not interested. They are dissatisfied with banks, but continue to live with them out of habit because “all banks are the same”. For them, a “bank without branches” is rather a disadvantage, because “there is no feeling that the bank exists in reality if it is only on the Internet.”

These people respond to the app demonstration, but promise to sign up later, when the brand becomes popular and “everyone starts using it” because “it's more reliable.”

The strategists have built a system to ensure that advertising is tailored to the objectives of each audience.

The top level is mass channels

They are needed to present monobank to the "It's okay" audience and to go beyond the Internet for them — to appear in the city and on TV, to become part of “real” life.

The second level is digital advertising.

It will help the "It's okay" to make the final decision and download the app, and remind the “potential monolovers” of their desire to become a customer and download it as well.

The third level is inside the app

Here you need to present new products and a referral program to invite friends.

Mass channels were meant to complement digital. They work for long-term brand awareness. This meant that during the campaign, the cost per customer would increase dramatically.

The strategists' hypothesis was that investing in recognition should increase the effectiveness of performance tools and reduce the cost of engagement at this level.

We couldn't make an honest prediction of how much we would offset the cost of mass advertising during the campaign, but we took this into consideration in our planning.

monobank already has a personality, a circle of fans, and the superpower of “making people fall in love with them”.

The challenge for the team was not to reinvent the brand from scratch, but to transfer this superpower to the world of mass communication with a wide audience. It was important not to become another “annoying fly”.

We focused on what the ad would be about, how we would differ, and what we would absolutely refuse to do.

The creative team was plunged into the strategy. We wanted to come up with a way to explain the convenience of mono in simple language, without “a straight face” and exaggerating its role in people's lives. The idea had to be easily decomposed into tactical tasks, channels, and audiences.

The creative team's brief was as follows: “Come up with a non-boring instruction on how to use mono” 

That’s how the idea “Can I? – You can” (Ukrainian: “Mono...? – Mono”) was born — and presented together with the strategy.

In June, we launched the first flight of the campaign.

Our main 75-second video included all the monobank features that were needed in the advertisement.

From the main video, we created videos of various formats and timings.

Pre-rolls and short formats

We wanted Monobank’s first appearance on TV to be a bit cheeky — just like the brand itself. We came up with a non-standard media format for the commercials, which would “cling” to the commercials of other brands on the air.

Simple and bright outdoor advertising repeated the technique from the video and worked on memorization in mono.

Four months in, we hit a record-breaking 160,000 new users — with an average of 140,000 joining every month throughout the campaign. During the advertising campaign, the cost per acquisition decreased by 19% compared to the average price in the first half of the year, offsetting some of the costs of mass communication.