CMO Corner: Acorns’ Kasia Leyden on how the firm is driving consumer action through warmth and education

Instead of taking a tried-and-true Apple-like aesthetic when it comes to their marketing and branding, Acorns has always taken a starkly different approach. Their brand is warm, green, and reminiscent of nature, building a sense of calm and intentional approach to growth. 

In this edition of the CMO Corner, we spoke with Kasia Leyden, who joined Acorns as its CMO in May of this year, following a 15 year long career in fintech with leadership positions at firms like PayPal, Venmo, and Braintree. 

Leyden breaks down what sets Acorns messaging apart from its competitors, how it is managing to engage consumers despite the noise in the system, and what role education plays in deepening its ties to its customers. 

Aligning campaigns to the core message

Marketing messages get lost in the noise of today’s online channels when they aren’t immediately recognizable. One surefire way to stick the landing is by using a brand’s core message as the foundation for each campaign and weaving in creative assets that reinforce the idea.

For Acorns, this means communicating that investing can be simple, that it is open to everyone, and a measured consistent approach to investing can yield big returns in time. The brand signals this through visual elements like a squirrel, acorn, and trees ,as well as naming their products, like their“Mighty Oak” debit card. 

“Every campaign we run has to inspire people to believe that financial wellness is for them. Not just for the privileged few, but for everyone. Our job is to break the taboo that investing is out of reach, and show that small, everyday steps can grow into something meaningful,” says Leyden.

In the past, the firm has utilized partnerships with celebrities like The Rock to drive engagement with their products like the Mighty Oak card. In this particular campaign, Acorns used a buffed up squirrel to symbolize The Rock’s involvement but also to implicitly message how the card empowered its users.

Tying in product development

For effective conversion, it’s important that the product experience and feature sing the same tune as marketing. Firms can’t talk about “seamless experiences” on their websites and then hit their customers with complicated onboarding or confusing features and expect good ROI. 

For Leyden, follow through from ads to CX is absolutely essential. “If we say it in marketing, it has to be reflected in the product. We’ve built processes around this — GTM planning happens cross-functionally with product, compliance, and creative in the same room. That consistency is how we build trust. And trust, just like investing, compounds over time,” she said. 

Pro tip: Having stakeholders verify that marketing claims are backed up by product experience as well as business strategy is the only way to avoid customer disappointment and avoid fragmentation in the long term. 

Making consumers relate with a product is difficult: deep understanding of customer pain points and characters often resides with product dev teams due to their work on consumer personas and can be used to situate products in the lived experiences of customers. Marketing leaders can have product managers work alongside copywriting and design teams to add context to the campaign while also enabling content creation that evokes emotions.  

More than the product

Consumers’ relationships with fintechs and FIs are evolving beyond transactions. People now look towards their financial services provider to enable healthier financial decisions and better quality of life. For a company like Acorns, where the core message relies heavily on simplifying a fundamentally difficult financial product, diving deeper into educational materials serves as a backbone for retention as well as awareness. 

Acorns does this through the company blog with posts like “Investing for Beginners: A Complete Guide,” time-sensitive articles on topics like inflation and the economy, and also with  podcasts. 

The Acorns app echoes the core message, too, with features like Round-Ups that invest spare change from transactions and visuals that show the return on investment over time. 

“Education at Acorns isn’t a content track – it’s a design philosophy. Whether it’s how we frame Round-Ups, show potential growth, or send calm, contextual nudges, we’re constantly trying to remove intimidation from money,” shared Leyden.

The firm’s TikTok channel takes this approach a step further, with influencers breaking down how investing an amount equal to the price of a nice coffee can compound over time – tying everyday habits to CTAs.

Finding the right cadence and tone

Once the messaging and tie-in with the product is figured out, firms should find the right lever on frequency and craft language that motivates action. For this, Acorns couples its message of simplicity, while also encouraging actions that are relatively low-lift for the customer, like investing spare change. 

“We see the strongest engagement when we keep it simple and actionable. People want clear, relatable messages they can apply today — like how saving and investing a few dollars a day could turn into thousands over time. Channels that allow us to show up in everyday life, whether that’s podcasts, TikTok, or trusted media, consistently perform best,” said Leyden. 

While crafting these messages it’s important to keep the general customer mood in mind: consumers are overwhelmed with choice as well as pressures from the economy. So Acorns has chosen to build away from the hype when speaking to consumers. 

“Our tone is calm by design. While others rely on fear, urgency, or hype, we take the opposite path. We want Acorns to feel like the most trusted corner of your phone. Visually, that means space, warmth, and clarity. We don’t want our users to feel pressured – we want them to feel supported. That intentional contrast helps us cut through the noise,” said Leyden. 

The warmth Leyden is alluding to here is evoked by both the brand colors as well as assets that are rooted in nature, which the brand uses throughout its digital footprint.

Pro tip: In a time of economic volatility brands need to recalibrate how their messaging drives action, encouraging immediacy in action isn’t always the best path.  “We stand out by staying true to who we are. While others push spending or trading, we focus on saving and long-term investing. That clarity helps us cut through the noise, because our message is consistent, values-driven, and rooted in improving people’s lives.”