BMO Financial Group - Small-Budget Marketing Campaign of the Year

Company: BMO Financial Group
Company Description: Established in 1817, BMO Financial Group is a highly diversified financial services provider based in North America. With total assets of US$614 billion and more than 45,000 employees, BMO provides a broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management and investment banking products and services to more than 12 million customers.
Nomination Category: Marketing Campaign Categories - Specialty
Nomination Sub Category: Small-Budget Marketing Campaign of the Year (<$3 million)

Nomination Title: Sustainability Leaders: Ideas that make a difference.

Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched: November 2020

Building on the success of our fiscal 2020 campaign, BMO was proud to again anchor an eleven-week advertising campaign around its exclusive Canadian sponsorship of Bloomberg Sustainable Finance Week (SFW) Nov. 1-Feb. 1. For the second year in this three-year partnership with Bloomberg, BMO leveraged the unique SFW spotlight to underscore its commitment to a sustainable future. Our objective was to build awareness and engagement with Institutional Investors and the C-Suite via original sustainability-focused thought leadership content and virtual events, including the Sustainable Business Summit, and to showcase BMO partnerships with market moving players and its expertise in emerging trends and visionary ideas in the area of sustainable finance. Major themes this year included social impact, climate policy and the future of sustainable investing. The key challenge was to use the SFW partnership to reinforces BMO's purpose-driven bold pledge to support progress toward a sustainable future, a thriving economy and a more inclusive society with zero barriers. Content was designed to speak directly to clients pursuing sustainable objectives and positive social impact such as those expressed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as well as environmental outcomes supporting the transition to a lower-carbon economy.

Our sponsorship of SFW established a market-credible base to anchor a broader campaign. A specially-curated, content-based ad campaign titled Ideas that Make a Difference underscored an11-week content push, with each piece featuring our in-house sustainability experts in thought leadership that would appear across a range of Bloomberg ads, including bloomberg.com and QuickTake, Bloomberg's 24-hour Twitter news feed. We showcased our thought leadership on their digital properties,debutedCEODan Barclay op-ed on Energy and Mining space (areas where BMO has taken a position), andhosted key events where we’ve had our CEOs participate in select panels.

In this moment of unprecedented disruption, sustainable finance has never been more relevant, and investors are recognizing the benefits, creating an “ah-ha” solution/marketing avenue that has not previously existed. At this rate of growth, $75 trillion in ESG-mandated assets could be in market by 2025, and this partnership was meant to raise our profile as a convener and leader of the dialogue as sustainable investing grows as a discipline. In just eight years,sustainably-managedassets under management have grown from 11% to 30%, according to Bloomberg. Doubling down on our expertise in Sustainable Finance to reinforce to our target audience our expertise at this critical time was the right course of action and led to a successful effort.