Columbia Bank’s Pass It On Project
SPREADING WEALTH, NOT COVID, DURING THESE CRAZY TIMES.
services:
Advertising, Branding, Content Studio, Design, Marketing Sciences, Paid Media, Search, Social & Display, Web
THE CHALLENGE: Name, brand, produce and market Columbia Bank’s innovative, new program to aid small businesses and communities during COVID. The challenge was daunting: identify and narrow a long list of viable candidates across three states to 20 businesses, phone-interview each of them, video-interview each of them remotely, then create a fully integrated multi-media marketing campaign—all in just three-weeks.
GreenRubino named the program the Pass It On Project, which worked like this; Columbia Bank partnered with their small business customers, who then identified members of their communities who could benefit from financial aid to pay for much-needed products or services during COVID. The small business helps out a customer, and the customer’s bill gets paid by Columbia Bank. A win-win.
THE WORK: Meeting the deadline required a carefully planned, impeccably executed virtual production. Using laptops, headphones, smart phones, and a lot of ingenuity, GreenRubino conducted 20 “Zoom” interviews. We overcame technical and communication complications (often common to doing anything in a virtual world) to produce, shoot, and edit 20 one-minute videos and two 30-second TV spots. We also conceived and build a microsite to host all the interviews & videos, designed a series of print ads and numerous digital ads for web and social media across the bank’s entire footprint. The microsite fleshed-out all the stories, complete with photography and contact information for the businesses.
THE RESULTS: In the pre-COVID world, delivering this volume and quality of creativity would have taken a lot longer than three weeks. The entire bank, including the C-suite and Board of Directors, is thrilled with the campaign (as are the small businesses and community members who participated in it). Positive results are already pouring in. After just one week, thousands have visited the microsite, engagement of all the content is extremely high, and coverage of Columbia Bank’s Pass It On Project is making news across all of their markets.
