We recently took a field trip to visit the experiential content marketing event that is Vanguard’s At-Cost Cafe, during its 3-day stint at San Francisco’s Justin Herman Plaza, on the waterfront Embarcadero.

The coffee was bold, and the story was, too – the “sales pitch” much less so. Just as it should be.

Here’s what we found – with lots of takeaways for Lean Marketers and anyone with a financial or decidedly un-sexy message you want to deliver in a highly digestible way:

The Challenge: How does a financial services brand in a highly regulated industry:

deliver its message
engage new users and
build social media followers
— without breaking the rules or causing the audience to curl up in the fetal position, eyes twitching and body convulsing from boredom?’

The Business Objectives: Drive Social media engagement (pics on Instagram, etc.) and follower-building (Likes/Follows on Facebook and Twitter)

Increase Brand recall
Acquire new households
Reduce spend per acquisition

Lean Marketing Insights and Outcomes: Outcomes are measured via specific web addresses, campaign specific 1-800 numbers, among other instruments

Outcome: 74% increase in number of net new households
Outcome: 68% decreasing in advertising spending per acquisition since 2010.

Insight – Michael Ma, Vangurd’s Manager + Head of Retail Advertising: “We’re 100% transparent with senior management when things don’t work—had X loss or X negative impact. But we explain the thinking and then we kill it and move on to the next set of experiments.”

The Approach:

Serious investors and the wealthy know that Vanguard is the choice for low-cost investment trading. But it’s almost one of those funny paradoxes of the wealthy – the more money you have the less you have to pay for.

Vanguard’s service is seen by most as somewhat dry and even boring, not the stuff of a vivid, human story. That said, of its competitors, Vanguard and its agencies have tripled down on digital, creating channels they fuel with bite-sized messages and simple stories delivered with a light, creative approach. (Remember when they turned “Vanguard” into a verb?)

Vanguard’s At-Cost Cafe is a touring coffee truck that parks for several days at a time

The Story:

We asked the uber-friendly gent manning the truck and talking to customers in queue, Jimmy: “Why 26 cents?” And he immediately, pleasantly launched into the story of the At-Cost Cafe.

He said, “When you hear about premium products, you expect to pay a lot for them. We’re selling great coffee today for 26 cents, which is one-fifth of the national average cost of a cup of coffee, because Vanguard gives its customers the best investment service out there for one-fifth of the national average cost. We just want people to know that you can actually get the best for a very low cost, with Vanguard – and we think everyone can appreciate that message.”

Additional Execution Points:

Because of financial regulations, the coffee truck is staffed by baristas, at least one person who simply talks to customers in queue and 2 actual Vanguard investment professionals. As well, one ad agency representative was present, when we came to the cafe.
No new accounts are actually sold at the cafe, also due to regulatory concerns.

In addition to the coffee near-giveaway, Jimmy had premium thermal mugs on offer to anyone who could show him on their smartphone that they had posted a pic of the At-Cost Cafe to Instagram or newly followed Vanguard on Facebook or Twitter.

When Jimmy asked whether we’d ever heard of Vanguard, I mentioned that I am an existing Vanguard investor. The cost of my cup of coffee was immediately cut in half, no documentation necessary, to 13 cents. (The fact that I still had to beg Rachel for cash is slightly embarrassing.)

There was a sign posted in the window of the At-Cost Cafe declaring that all proceeds of the coffee sales would be delivered to the San Francisco Police Activity League..

The truck itself was painted with the hashtag: #AtCostCafe. The truck itself held a video display playing a video to the folks in queue for coffee, but the glare of the sun was so bright and the volume so low that we couldn’t even make out what was being played on the screen.

Jimmy told us that they had experimented with the At-Cost Cafe at all sorts of local fairs and outdoor markets for years leading up to the current cafe tour campaign, to dial in execution before deploying nationwide.

The Digital + Content Tools Used:

Hashtag
Microsite
Video
Branded/messaged collateral including:
the truck itself
coffee cup sleeves
tri-fold brochures

Agencies Involved:

KBS&P
ThinkVine
VisualIQ

Sources: Firsthand reporting and AdAge.