Case Studies

The Client

London headquartered banking major HSBC is the world's sixth-largest banking and financial services group. HSBC operates in more than 80 countries around the world, providing financial services to over one hundred million customers in territories across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America.

In India, HSBC has a fast growing personal banking customer base, in addition to its corporate and commercial banking clients to whom it offers a comprehensive suite of world-class products and services.

The Brief

To give back to the society: by enabling street and working children learn essential life skills with a little assistance from HSBC & its customers.

A simple, yet beautiful thought by HSBC saw the inception of a great business practice and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative in the campaign - HSBC Raise a Hand. Essentially, the campaign is a referral programme for HSBC Premier Customer. For each referral that is successfully signed up as an HSBC Premier customer, HSBC India will make a contribution to 'Butterflies' - a NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation) on the behalf of customer.

'Butterflies' is a registered voluntary organization helping street and working-children by giving them the right to have a full-fledged childhood, where they have the right to protection, respect, opportunities and participation in his/her growth and development.

This concerted effort aims to give the hope of a better life to an underprivileged child with just a negligible amount of time from an existing customer. To communicate and promote the HSBC Raise a Hand campaign on a digital platform, HSBC approached HGS Interactive.

The Approach

HGS Interactive proposed a dedicated website for HSBC Raise a Hand, linked to the main HSBC website. The HSBC Raise a Hand, hence was built as a microsite that is featured on the main HSBC website. Email communication was also an essential part of the campaign; hence, e-mailers for the same were to be created.

All the resource aggregation, campaign information and subsequent 'next steps' in the ways a customer can contribute with relevant terms & conditions were to be featured in a simple page-by-page layout. The reason to follow a simplistic flow of design & content was to achieve minimal confusion & quick action. The referral form fields were to be kept to a minimal, with multiple forms aggregated on a single page.

The approach was to build a clear and clean website that provides information to inspire action, but doesn't look cluttered and rhetoric. Similar sentiment was carried forward while creating E-mailers to generate user engagement.

The Solution

• New layout was designed & developed, as per the business requirement and HSBC Premier Brand guidelines.
• The navigation was kept minimalistic with a landing section and 4 other sections that contain information on the initiative, ‘Butterflies’, ‘How the customer can participate’ and ‘Terms & Conditions’.
• The then latest technology in HTML was used along with CSS to create a seamless microsite.
• The campaign was aggressively promoted through e-mailers. These e-mailers were aesthetically created with copy that inspired action.
• The microsite features links from HSBC's other CSR activities and also, features a brief write-up on the NGOs it is associated with for such initiatives.

The Result

HSBC Premier Customers are high net worth individuals and as per past trends have a relatively low rate of revert to online communication. But the Raise a Hand campaign surpassed the anticipated results and was highly successful with HSBC Premier Customers. In a nutshell, HSBC Raise a Hand accomplished real and tangible outcomes to achieve its goal of providing working-children essential life skills.