Helping expats understand the reality of living and working abroad through interactive data visualisation and rich, insightful content
For those people considering living and working abroad it’s hard to know what expat life is really like.
Create an experience that helps people decide where to live and work in the world based on their own personal requirements and consequently position HSBC Expat as a bank that truly takes the time to understand its target audience and their unique lifestyle.
HSBC Expat provides financial products to people living and working abroad. As part of their marketing to the expat community, HSBC Expat runs one of the world’s largest annual surveys of expat life, asking expats to respond to questions around economics, experience and family. Initially, HSBC Expat published their findings as three annual pdfs.
This was a simple case of proactively pitching an idea to an existing client and seeing where it went! In 2010 I was personally looking after the presentation of the static survey data on the HSBC Expat website when it seemed there was an opportunity to make it more personal and easier to consume. This led me to formulate ideas, circulate and validate within our team and prepare a small pitch to HSBC Expat.
Our solution was to convert the three pdfs into one single interactive tool. Based on a custom built database containing all of the survey data we designed and built a tool that allowed the user to select any number of the forty plus criteria to see which country would perform best for their own individual needs. Once the criteria has been selected the user is able to see a global ‘bubble map’ view that clearly shows where the strongest and weakest countries are. The user can also compare two countries side by side in more detail. The tool is also complemented by annual key findings that provide qualitative insights into expat life.
The tool became the first deliverable in an entire suite that has continued to grow over the last 8 years. In addition to the expat survey data there is now a tool dedicated to crowdsourcing hints and tips, country guides that provide a comprehensive guide to expat life in 31 countries and territories, ‘Expat life…’ which asked more than 16,00 expats to sum up expat life in one word and was creatively interpreted by a poet, journalist, blogger and IBM Watson and finally a perspective piece by psychologist Kate Berger, who shares tips to help families transition when moving abroad.
All of the above were designed and built within the HSBC global design guidelines to ensure brand consistency. Given the nature of the work and its heavy focus on data visualisation it also acted a great platform for informing the development of the guidelines themselves.
From day one engagement on the tool was high. The depth of data available and the ability to customise was a world first at it’s launch. As a consequence in 2015 organic search traffic increased by 63% and leads increased by 32%. The tool is consistently cited within HSBC Group as one the best uses of digital marketing to address customer needs. The work itself has also been awarded on a number of occasions including:
UXUK Awards ’Best Effect on Business Goals’ 2015 – Winner
CIM Marketing Excellence Awards ‘Chairman’s Grand Prix’ & ‘Financial Services’ 2013 – Winner
Webby Awards ‘Financial Services’ 2012 – Nominated