Money Bistro, Season 1

Romanians love, dream, spend a lot on food… but they never „digest” money lessons. Rogalski Damaschin PR decided to put on their tables financial appetizers for a healthy life, and opened Money Bistro. The first video series about financial education was created for Raiffeisen Bank at the end of 2018, and reached up to 10,000,000 Romanians.

Romanians are last in EU when it comes to financial literacy, as only 1 in 5 is considered suitably educated on this topic. However, 58% of Romanians use a bank account, which means that 1 in 2 of them are not able to understand simple financial terms. On the other side, Romanians love to eat and discuss about food: they read food blogs or magazines (food print publications are the most read by Romanians) and are big fans of cooking TV shows.

We decided to pick Romanians curiosity on budgeting and personal financing by transforming a rather sterile subject – financial education – into a fun and entertaining topic for the general public, while also being relevant and accessible for different types of audiences. Thus, we opened Money Bistro, a virtual place that served financial appetizers for a healthy life. Money Bistro was designed as a „video-driven” educational platform, with short `informational snacks’ of 2-3 minutes, focused on one subject. We also invited a well-known TV host, to be the maître d’ of the program. Along with the program’s guests – from Raiffeisen Bank’s employees to key opinion leaders -, he translated financial concepts into an easy-to-understand language, making various associations with daily ingredients.

Money Bistro, a financial educational online platform, was developed into a first season of 10 video interviews. Romanian public personalities – economists, vloggers, chefs, food bloggers, journalists and entrepreneurs – stopped by Money Bistro and shared their tips for a healthy financial life. Additionaly, we created 10 video infographies detailing the financial topics covered in the series – budgeting, needs vs. wants, inflation, how to properly use credit cards, or how to save for a comfortable life.

We also challenged Romanians to check their financial health – creating the first Financial Health Index – and go on a 30-Day #MoneyDetox period, alongside influencers who write on various subjects – travel, parenting or lifestyle. Also a dedicated handbook with financial recipes for all 5000 RZBR employees was launched, as Money Bistro became a permanent course in the Raiffeisen Banking University – a program which appoints internal employees to continuously train other colleagues on various skills. Currently, a program to engage Internal Money Bistro Ambassadors is planned, in order to organize Money Bistro-meets in the bank’s agencies and talk with clients.

The campaign’s innovative approach was getting the talks on personal finance out of seminars and classes and put it where most of the Romanians are – online. In order to make the subject more appealing and „tasty” for the audience, we invited well-known key opinion leaders, from various fields, to share their own financial tips & tricks. By that, we encouraged Romanians to start talking and put questions about money and budgeting over dinner or during a drink with friends.

Results

The campaign overtopped 2 times the planned KPIs vs. real KPIs. The first season of Money Bistro had over 10 mln total reach, and over 3 mln views, meaning that 3 out of 10 Romanians tasted the Money Bistro menu. Calculated in time, Money Bistro videos meant over 1,678,193 minutes, which is 1165 days of binging. In one month, over 3430 Romanians took the Financial Health Index. The first 30-Day #MoneyDetox challenge had a reach of over 281,400, which is 3.5x more than the audience on Raiffeisen Bank’s social media accounts.