Toronto-based TD Bank is promoting its new Partial Shares investing product through its latest campaign called ‘Own It’, backed by Visible Billboards activation. The bank partnered with Ogilvy Canada for the campaign, with the ad’s focus on a quirky young investor who fully embraces the perks of partial ownership of an airline, baseball team, space company, and entertainment corporation.
Tyrrell Schmidt, Global Chief Marketing Officer, said today’s physical presence is very different than what it used to be. He acknowledged that companies need to grow and be with their customers and their future customers where they are. “The old concept around right product, right time, right customer through the right channel still really exists. We look at customer experience generally. What we know is simple, communication matters.”
Schmidt believes banking can be complicated, and people want to understand what the organization is telling them. “’Own It’ is just a really great example of having someone come in and demonstrating in a relatively light but understandable and digestible way.”
Francesco Grandi, Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy Canada, said the agency had grounded optimism with TD. “We like to exaggerate and be a little bit hyperbolic, but never in a way that goes so absurdist or so far out of reality that the everyday Canadian can’t see themselves in it.”
Schmidt pointed out that Partial Shares and the Own It campaign was intended to make banking more accessible to younger consumers. The out-of-home ads Visible Billboards stood out with colored dot-style to highlight the message ‘If you can’t see this, it’s because we see you’ (this is only visible to color blind viewers).
The TD Bank executive said they are always in for purposeful innovation. “That’s always been who we are as a brand: being able to really empathize and show the human side of banking by understanding the person behind it.” Schmidt added that their brand promise is to bring a human, empathetic approach to banking, that is consistent. “Having those things that sit at the top of the house really matters, especially when you share only one border.”
Grandi said TD Bank helped turn Toronto Pride into one of the biggest pride events in the world. “It has supported Indigenous banking and women in leadership. Despite doing 30 to 40 initiatives a year, advertising is rarely part of the strategy. “They almost do so much of it that they don’t know where to shine the spotlight on.”
Ogilvy Canada executive added that they are always supportive of TD Bank’s initiatives.
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