A familiar brand, but what do they do?
Imagine seeing the Cofidis logo: bright yellow and red, with a sunburst design. You’ve seen it before, but what exactly do they offer? Travel services? Energy solutions?
In today’s crowded market, while 75% of consumers recognize a brand by name, only a fraction can describe its offerings. This was evident with Cofidis, where only 24% of Flemish associated the brand with consumer credit. Moreover, our market research revealed that 71% of consumers would prefer to take out credit through traditional banks, with Flemish consumers largely unaware of specialized establishments like Cofidis.
Our challenge was clear: turning brand recognition into true understanding.
The key to connecting with our audience
To define our target audience, we relied on a Mediabrands study focused on Cofidis open non-users—individuals not yet customers but open to becoming one.
We identified that they are primarily aged 18-44, living mostly outside large cities, with strong interests in individual sports, food, and music. Their daily media consumption includes 1h51 on social media, closely followed by 1h49 on broadcast TV. They are highly active on Instagram and YouTube, with 31% using TikTok weekly, and 16% regularly following sports news. These insights guided our media mix, ensuring we connected with our audience.
Standing out in a crowded market
We strategically selected a six-week campaign window from mid-September to October, avoiding the media clutter and high costs of Back-to-school and Black Friday. Moreover, after analyzing competitors in Flanders, we decided to focus on a clear and consistent message, effectively conveying what we do.
Crafting a strategic media mix
We knew our audience's media behavior but to capture their attention and make our message stick, we chose video ads of 15 sec and banner ads that were used to blend seamlessly with the content they were consuming.
We combined low-cost, high-reach channels like Meta and TikTok for broad visibility with premium placements on news websites and BVOD platforms through our partnerships with DPG and Ads&Data, which offer a wide inventory consumed by our audience in Flanders. To add a fresh layer to our strategy, we experimented with in-read video and contextual advertising using our audience's interests like individual sports, food, and music for the targeting, enhancing relevance.
Monitoring and optimization
Our goal wasn’t only visibility, we wanted people to understand what Cofidis offers. That’s why our key KPIs were frequency and view rate, ensuring our message was seen and understood.
We closely monitored these metrics daily to make quick adjustments. For example, this data-driven approach enabled us to switch some budget from Meta’s when frequency hit 6 in the first week to BVOD campaigns, which had a much higher View Rate.
Delivering measurable results
The campaign delivered strong results. Our Brand Lift study with DPG showed a +37.8% increase in brand consideration, the highest uplift recorded in 2023. On the other hand, our Brand Tracker revealed a 12.5% increase in brand consideration and a 16% rise in the association between “credit expert” and “Cofidis” in Flanders. It demonstrates that our strategy met objectives, ensuring that consumers not only recognized Cofidis but also associated it correctly with our offer.
Olivia Lohest
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