Banking on YouTube

6 Jun 2008

It's yet another bank getting into the stride of social media. Earlier this week, FNB became reportedly the first South African bank to offer a dedicated YouTube channel, FNBTV. It aims to promote all that is good about South Africa and provide an outlet for local South Africans and people living abroad to celebrate and share all that is positive the country.

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Launched on Sunday, 1 June 2008, www.youtube.com/user/FNBTV is already off to an incredible start with over 5700 channel views and more than 1300 views of FNB's brand advert, Afrika Phambili.

“FNB is a progressive bank and we are embracing digital media in a unique way for a financial services company,” says recently appointed FNB media director Gisele Wertheim-Aymes.

This is not the first time FNB has been first to market with digital outreach. “In 2003, FNB was the first bank to offer an SMS notification service, inContact and currently alerts more than five million subscribed customers of activity on their accounts. And, this week we launched cellphone banking for businesses, another first in South Africa,” she says.

Understand and respect social media rules

“As a bank we understand and respect the rules of social media. FNB staff members have created their own Facebook group without any marketing intervention. We believe it is important to respect the integrity of the FNB Facebook initiative, as a pure social networking site.”

FNBTV was launched shortly after the bank's announcement to donate a R2 million relief package for the victims of xenophobic attacks. FNB is a National Supporter of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and is supportive of efforts to ensure that the tournament is inclusive for South Africans and Africans.

FNB brand director Derek Carstens has spoken out against the xenophobic attacks sweeping through South Africa, rallying all and sundry behind the 2010 FIFA World Cup theme: “Ke Nako (It's time): Celebrating Africa's humanity”.

“As a host country, we must be aware of our 2010 responsibility on behalf of the African continent. Our responsibility is to lead by example and to not allow a minority to derail us from successfully hosting the first ever FIFA World Cup in Africa,” says Carstens.

Absa recently announced a Facebook profile and Standard Bank was the first South African brand to use a social media press release as part of its Standard Bank Pro20 Series marketing campaign.