Inspirational Ads That Perform: Priceless Insights From Financial Services

For decades, financial services companies have established a reputation for globally iconic brand campaigns – and it’s made them the envy of the advertising industry. But what’s more, they’re able not just to inspire but to drive conversions.

What are their secrets? We were lucky enough at Infillion to host a fireside chat at Cannes Lions with Cheryl Guerin, EVP of global brand strategy and innovation at Mastercard; and Peter Giorgi, SVP of brand marketing, partnerships, and creative excellence at Rocket. Moderated by Infillion chief growth officer Laurel Rossi, the conversation probed into how these iconic campaigns are made, how they continue to resonate, and how these seemingly upper-funnel brand strategies fuel lower-funnel sales.

“Part of keeping us fresh is continually coming up with ways to break through, but be both purposeful and driven by passion,” Cheryl Guerin said. “We’re always looking at what’s next in passions and how to lean into purpose.”

The pairing of Mastercard and Rocket brought a unique spin to the conversation: Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign is 27 years old (older than Facebook or the iPhone) and yet seems just as fresh today as it did when it launched. Rocket’s “Own The Dream” slogan, which took center stage this year at the Super Bowl with a seamless combination of televised ad and in-stadium activation that was visible to TV audiences, is very new.

“We’re on year two of ‘Own the Dream,’ we’re on year two of our brand,” Peter Giorgi said. “We talk a lot about other iconic brands and how they’ve built so much equity through beautiful storytelling that is connected to product… There is no iconic brand without an iconic product. You have to connect the two.”

He hopes it’ll have the same longevity that Mastercard’s “Priceless” has. “Consistency is the most under-leveraged strategy in marketing,” he said. “The really iconic brands are remarkably consistent.”

Cheryl Guerin explained that at Mastercard, the “Priceless” slogan has stayed consistent to the point that they no longer think of it solely as an ad campaign. Having this remarkably stable brand identity has given her team the creative freedom to innovate in other spaces. “We talk about our campaign being 27 years young, which is quite remarkable, but it’s not a campaign anymore,” she said. “We keep looking at what’s coming next. How do we live in culture?”

Mastercard became the first-ever global sponsor of e-sports, for example, at a time when brands were often reticent about its longevity. But it helped them reach younger audiences. “The harder part was saying we’re going to spend money on an audience that doesn’t necessarily have cards yet,” Guerin said. “We’re lucky that our corporation looks at us as leaders in this space to stay ahead.”

Rocket has to rely heavily on brand KPIs because home buying is such an involved decision with a planning process that literally takes years. “We need to drive leads and close mortgages… but we have to have that two, three, five-year point of view on how are we getting better quality leads,” Giorgi said. “There’s only so much you can do at the bottom of the funnel…You’re spending more to get worse prospects.”

Another reason that financial services brands have historically had to lean on big, universally resonant brand campaigns in part because regulations have hindered their ability to target precisely. “It is one of the most highly regulated segments or categories anywhere,” Giorgi said. “We can’t target audiences based on ethnicities or income or anything like that.” He added that Rocket didn’t have any kind of consumer segmentation until a year ago.

That’s changed with digital, which created new ways to segment and target that don’t run afoul of regulations, plus a constellation of new media properties with more clearly defined audience demographics. “We use a ton of data,” Giorgi said. I was saying yesterday that I sometimes get jealous of what my job would’ve looked like in, like, 1983. You buy NBC and the New York Times and then, I guess, you get super good at golf. We have to be as fluent in strategy and creativity as we are in data, insights, measurement, all of these things.”

But whatever the targeting, companies in financial services – which are connected to some of consumers’ most personal and often emotional decisions – need to build reputations that show they care about their customers’ daily lives. Cheryl Guerin talked about Mastercard’s Touch Card product for people with visual impairments as an example. “It’s not going to be the reason they choose us, only, but they’ve said it’s a differentiator. We have shared values and we’re thinking of the end consumer,” she explained. “We win business because of that.”

Mastercard also found that the Touch Card had even wider appeal than the company thought. “If you design for inclusion, it’s going to be better for everyone,” Guerin said.

Peter Giorgi said that companies in the mortgage industry historically hadn’t tapped into just how emotional the process of buying a home is for Americans, and that’s created a disconnect that Rocket has sought to mitigate. “At the Super Bowl this year we really just wanted to focus on the feeling of home, the achievement of home…60% of people cry. People book therapy sessions because they’re buying a home,” he said. “It’s the most significant purchase you ever make…what if the experience actually matched the significance? What if this was joyful? What if this was pleasurable?”

Maybe, in the end, the lesson that financial services success stories have for the rest of the ad industry is that siloes need to be broken down so that every campaign is considered a full-funnel campaign. “The narrative that we created internally, and we live it, is never just ‘build the brand,’” Cheryl Guerin said. “It’s build the brand, fuel the business, and create competitive advantage.”

At Infillion, our products like TrueX and IDVx take your iconic brand campaigns and bring them to interactive video and CTV. Reach out to learn more.