A full football season recap.
Kit Kuebler
Sr. Copywriter
As the Buffalo Bills official bank and longest corporate partner, M&T Bank moves beyond the “logo slap” to celebrate the authentic culture of Bills Mafia.
You may need to scroll a football field’s worth to see the full recap of work we did this season. But this integrated Bills Fans Get It campaign is well worth it with player partnerships, a giant snow sculpture, and much more.
3.9M video views
35.18% increase in followers
6.4% average engagement rate
12 posts exceeding 10%
On TV.
Beloved Bills radio announcer, Chris Brown, compared every tap to a touchdown.
Featuring fans paying in the most Buffalo-coded gameday locations of all, Wegmans and La Nova.
On out of home.
Four new debit card designs joined the Bills Debit Card collection. With personalities that perfectly fit our fans.
On Highmark Stadium jumbotron and paid digital.
We leaned into everyone’s favorite mascot. Illustrated by hand by our exceptionally artistic art director, Katelyn, and animated by our insanely talented motion artist, Tien.
1.7+ million impressions across 23 boosted Meta ads
On social.
Keon Coleman partnership work.
One hour spent filming #0 promoting M&T Bank’s season-long 15% off in The Bills Store scored 10K likes, 450+ comments, and 700+ shares.
Khalil Shakir partnership work.
Shakir plays like a star, but he’s never the highlight of social. We changed that. Starting with a video that shared 10 things fans probably didn’t know about him. And if there’s one thing social media did know about #10, it’s that he loves dogs. Using his dog, Penny was too perfect.
Gametime with Shakir.
Tuesday is one of the only days without football on TV, so we had #10 playing different games instead to keep followers engaged.
Billy Buffalo gets it.
On social, Billy Buffalo voiced what fans were thinking and even spoofed big moments this year like the team being featured on Hard Knocks and in a Hallmark movie.
Filming the fans.
Our street team hit home games with a mic’d up oversized debit card for a series called “Debit Card This or That.”
“Bills Win!” posts.
Every win, we had a graphic waiting to be reshared.
A new playoff flag.
The Bills headed into the playoffs billieving, and so did we.
Three years ago, we created a Billieve Together playoff flag as a free giveaway. This year, we updated the design and gave fans a fresh reason to visit M&T during the playoffs.
A four-day new flag teaser.
Before the reveal or availability at the bank, we built hype with a four-day teaser countdown on social.
Then the flag dropped on TV and social.
Beloved Bills legend, Eric Wood, announced flags were available in branches before shifting the messaging to encourage fans to fly ’em high through playoffs when they sold out.
25000 flags were claimed within just 24 hours
And most fans did more than grab a flag while at the bank.
Knowing the flags would be a BIG deal.
We made them bigger than ever on iconic landmarks in Buffalo – emphasizing the CTA to fly ’em high.
Supporting the Billieve Together playoff rally.
For a city-wide playoff rally at the bank’s headquarters, we designed swag, a mobile rally bus design, and captured/posted content in real-time.
This stadium seat keychain commemorating the final year of playing in Highmark Stadium was a fan fav.
A last-minute community surprise and delight.
Once the flags sold out, we launched “Fly ’Em High Fridays” – a short series where Billy surprised local organizations with flags every Friday, asking followers to comment on where we should go next.
And like our flags, comments we’re flying!
A new good luck charm.
What’s more Bills Fans Get It than a giant snow sculpture by @ericjonesstudios outside one of M&T Bank’s busiest branches? Fans lined up to take photos, hoping it would bring good luck for the weekend game.
Results.
The results sure show we delivered on the client’s goal: fan engagement over clicks.
On social.
78596 engagements
71976 likes
1088 shares
2.8M+ views
But don’t just take our numbers for it. Here’s what just a few of the bank’s followers had to say:
No time is ever wasted billieving.
And though it wasn’t our Super Bowl year here in Buffalo, Bills fans get that no time spent fanning is a waste. This final post-season video reminded followers of that.
Go Bills!
