Bank Positioning and Cause-Related Marketing: The Case of Contactmore by ING

Abstract

This case concerns cause-related marketing (CRM) in the banking industry. The specific aim of this chapter is to evaluate the implementation and results obtained by ING Bank in a CRM campaign, namely, Contactmore. This was transaction-based CRM, which consisted of a donation to a non-profit organisation (NPO) and was linked to the use of ING credit/debit cards. Contactmore was developed between the 2nd of December 2019 and 15th of January 2020. Once the campaign was over, the donations made by customers and ING amounted to 223,718 and 56,347 euros, respectively. This campaign used an integrated marketing communication (IMC) strategy that included a microsite, a video, social networks, a blog post, publicity and permission marketing.

The case also explores to what extent the Contactmore campaign was successful at improving the positioning of ING as regards both corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate reputation and attempts to identify possible improvements that could have been made to the IMC strategy used. The data concerning estimated traffic, visitor engagement and inbound links related to the microsite and the video views, likes and comments show that the popularity of the Contactmore campaign was limited and that several strategic and operational aspects could have been improved.