Taking the title of its “Soapbox” campaign a bit too literally, bank chain HSBC handpicked five loyal NYMag.com commenters to lead an online conversation that ties into the brand’s new TV and print ads created by JWT.
Considering it has a plethora of branches housed in the Big Apple, HSBC picked fertile soil, kickstarting the campaign with a two-hour chat between the five folks last month on topics ranging from the environment to technology. Selected pieces of the chat were then transferred to a display ad that sits on the NYMag homepage, which is for better or worse meant to entice the general public to add their $.02 and start a discourse.
But despite being compensated for their work in the campaign, the originally chosen commenters like Rebecca Rose don’t consider themselves campaign spokespeople. Instead, she says in her blog that her comments in the HSBC forum “came from her free-flowing opinions.” We’re sure the flowing cash had absolutely nothing to do with them.
If you’d love to flap your yap (and we know you do), you can join in on the fun here.