"Bank Leumi will invest NIS 12.5 million in social media during 2011," said Bank Leumi (TASE: LUMI) head of marketing division Tamar Yassur at a press conference. She added that the investment is double the investment in social media in 2010, and 25% of the bank's advertising budget.
"It's hard for me to imagine that there are businesses for whom the digital world and social media are not an important part of their work plans for 2011," said Yassur.
Yassur discussed Bank Leumi's "Million good reasons" project, first disclosed by "Globes". Bank Leumi will allocate NIS 1 million a year as part of this project, based on collaboration with Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) unit YouTube. Under the project, users will determine which non-profit associations will receive donations.
To participate in the competition, which will be launched this week, small NPOs (with less than NIS 5 million in annual activity) will put online a video clip that will function as their business card.
Bank Leumi entered the social media world in 2009 in collaboration with social media agency Refresh, founded by CEO Adam Shuv. Bank Leumi has a Facebook page with over 14,000 friends, and a Twitter account with 2,000 followers.
Although Yassur said that the Bank Leumi had found that social networks and digital media were not limited to the young, she revealed that the bank would set up a new marketing platform to target the young, Leumi Baazar, a content world on a branded page on Facebook. Leumi Baazar will offer its target audience a range of regular and changing daily benefits.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 17, 2010
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2010