People's Bank

Creating Publicity that Builds Goodwill

How Gavin helped a 150-year-old bank elevate its market presence by creating a story.

Proud of our past, focused on your future.

With more than 25 financial institutions located throughout Pennsylvania and Maryland, PeoplesBank offers a full range of consumer, business, wealth management and mortgage services. To build positive buzz around its 150th anniversary, the organization looked to Gavin™ to build a publicity plan that leveraged the organization’s history of community involvement and philanthropy.

With the positioning slogan being “Proud of our past, focused on your future”, Gavin created the Pay $150 Forward social media and public relations campaign, which celebrated the bank’s history while looking forward to the next 150 years as a platform to secure 12 months of positive coverage.

Making a difference with effective and viral publicity.

PeoplesBank had not previously leveraged proactive media outreach to their advantage, therefore Gavin worked with their senior leadership team to build an internal process for supporting media placements to garner positive and expert relative coverage. The launch of our efforts included a social media campaign that launched with viral content and excitement among customers.

To showcase how everyday people can make a difference in the community, Gavin produced a series of short viral videos by surprising people with $150 to use in 15 minutes or less. The only rule: the participant, deemed a “PeoplesBank Difference Maker,” could not spend the money on themselves. Each encounter was edited into a 3-4 minute video and shared on the bank’s social media channels, tagging participants and featured location profiles.

There was also an opportunity for followers of the PeoplesBank social profiles to nominate a recipient of their choice via a custom-designed Facebook app. Ten online Difference Makers were chosen from the list of entries.

Upon launching the campaign for two months, our team then utilized the elevated levels of interest in PeoplesBank as a catalyst to secure ongoing coverage for the rest of the year.

PeoplesBank leadership reported a significant positive reaction to the campaign, both internally and externally. Company CEO Larry Miller, originally skeptical of the power of social media and public relations, reported positive feedback from customers, employees and members of the general public.

Showing Results

350%

increase in social profile followers or fans

1,000%

increase in video views

15.5 Million

media impressions

Campaign Award Wins