Scotiabank upped the ante on its ‘Let the saving begin’ campaign this week with a digital-only event streamed live on its Facebook page.

The broadcast was the final leg of a cross-country tour in January in which broadcast personality Valerie Pringle and a panel of guests hosted educational events on RSPs in five cities across Canada.

Yesterday at noon, the session was broadcast live on Facebook, Moneyville.ca, FinancialPost.com and the Say Media network. PHD Canada handled the media for the extended digital strategy and Mighty did the campaign creative.

Tuesday’s live discussion starred Pringle, Zoomer Media’s Moses Znaimer, academic Richard Florida and Scotia MacLeod’s Bev Moir. Viewers were able to interact via live chat or by posting on Scotiabank’s wall.

Although the target viewership was modestly pegged at around 500 people, due to the specificity of the video content, over 5,500 people tuned it at its peak, vastly exceeding the goal, Daryl Stansfield, digital account director, PHD Canada, tells MiC. The high number of viewers opens up a lot of opportunity for the FI’s digital strategy, he says.

‘Going through the [viewer] comments was interesting,’ he says. ‘People were excited about the content and wanted it to become a regular series. I think a lot of things are going to spiral out of this.’

The stream was also carried live in big-box ad units on Moneyville.ca (a site for which Scotiabank is a presenting sponsor), the Financial Post‘s Personal Finance channel and via the Say Media network. Banner display ads augmented the execution and both units carried promotional creative for the event a week to five days ahead of it. Additional pre-promotion included a reach block on Facebook targeted at Canadians over 18 years old.

It was the first time many of the publishers carrying the feed had done such a thing, Stansfield says, and as such required a lot of coordination between all the parties involved. It also marked the first digital-only event for Scotiabank and its first live stream on Facebook.

The RSP edition of ‘Let the saving begin’ will run throughout February and following that, a third leg will begin focusing on lending and mortgages.