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Marketing Briefing: How a fintech focused on creators goes about creating a standout image

  • Fintechs continue to explore new ways of showing they're part of their consumers' lives.
  • Meanwhile, with the Advertising Standards Authority taking notice, UK crypto firms need to start heeding guidelines.
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Marketing Briefing: How a fintech focused on creators goes about creating a standout image

Lumanu is a fintech app focused on Gen Z creators -- like influencers, photographers, and designers. The app offers tools like payments, projects organization, and expense tracking. 

The trick to establishing Lumanu’s brand identity has been about matching the company’s tone with the creative inclination of its core user base.

“We needed to create a brand identity that spoke to the power of imagination, originality and personal expression,” said Annie Wang, CMO of Lumanu.

In a lot of ways, Lumanu has taken a different approach than many of its competitors. At first, said Wang, the company toyed with going for the classic minimalist fintech look. At the end though, it opted for a more vibrant color palette. One example is the company’s use of lime green.

“Our signature lime green is inspired by the green screen, and the idea that it functions as a blank canvas for creative expression,” said Wang

In terms of reaching potential users, Lumanu has been relying heavily on social media, since that’s where most potential users are active. Still, it’s been employing some pretty creative OOH tactics as well. Last year, the company ran two out-of-home campaigns, which included drawing people’s attention with colorful billboards and wild postings, and including QR codes within the images to entice them to scan to check out the product. 

“Leveraging a digital tool like the QR code combined with splashy visuals in a more traditional medium like OOH was really successful for us, because at the end of the day, a beautiful billboard that celebrates creativity is going to catch a creator’s eye,” said Wang.

lumen marketing campaign

Q&A with Kim Rosenblum, CMO of Betterment, on the company’s recent rebrand

In November, Betterment implemented a new rebrand strategy, donning new colors, a cool new logo, and a new vibe altogether – one that's ‘calm and deliberate’.

Tearsheet sat down with Betterment’s chief marketing officer Kim Rosenblum to find out how the rebrand has been going so far.

What have been the results since implementing the rebrand?

"For Betterment the rebrand has been unifying, the marketing and product have never been more in sync. The customer experience is now seamless; from marketing to the website, on the platform, and all customer messaging is cumulative. 

We’ve got a strong, singular identity that reinforces our core value proposition of easy, long-term, personalized investing. This has been especially important the past couple months, with world events and market fluctuations creating uncertainty and anxiety levels spiking. Our calm and deliberate brand feels even more important; being an alternative to instability and volatility is more relevant than ever.

Since our rebrand went live mid November, we’ve gotten positive feedback from our customers. Our brand trackers have shown steady increases in KPIs such as familiarity and awareness, and when we look at how we ended 2021, we saw statistically significant increases year over year."

How do you measure the success of a rebrand? 

"We track familiarity, awareness, and qualitative feedback, including how people describe the Betterment personality and what qualities we possess. We’ve seen positive growth in all these areas.

It’s not just enough to be known in the market. You have to be a brand that consumers recognize and see as having unique, qualitative value. Our goal was to be a brand that you want to have a long term financial relationship with, so we were pleased that among Millennials (our target customer), Betterment’s top 5 emotional attributes are now described as: Good Value, Trustworthy, Intelligent, Smart, Confident. 

We are still a relatively new brand so to be described this way - as established, experienced, and a brand you can trust is heartening. In very uncertain times these are critical characteristics for any financial services company, especially one that you are investing with for the long term."

Have there been any new challenges that have popped up along the way?

"A rebrand is a big undertaking, it permeates every part of the customer journey. So while we flipped the switch, and had a seamless transition, we continue to find areas that need updates, a dormant link, an old header on an email. We’ve also continued to add new illustrations to keep the storytelling fresh. As much work as we did, and are very proud of, we feel we’ve only just begun."

What’s been happening on the Acquire Podcast

Tearsheet's Acquire Podcast on financial services marketing

Just two weeks after its inaugural episode, the Acquire Podcast is picking up speed, with not one but two new episodes for you to listen to:

  1. Jeff Otto, VP of Marketing at Marqeta, on bringing crypto to point of sale
  2. John Forrester, SVP of Product at Ocrolus, on launching a free trial campaign that actually works

Side note: Know anyone who might be a good fit for the podcast? Email Rebecca Alma Cohen, host of the podcast, directly at [email protected].

What we’re reading

  • The ins and outs of email marketing – banking style (The Financial Brand)
  • DBS, a major bank in Singapore, launches a marketing campaign showcasing the benefits of its fintech offerings (Marketing-Interactive)
https://youtu.be/yLHs2-94pvI
  • Ready for a Bored Apes NFT Metaverse? There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write (TechCrunch)
  • UK’s Advertising Standards Authority demands crypto companies make sure their ads meet new guidance by May 2 (Coindesk). Meanwhile the Central Bank of Ireland warns influencers to beware of advertising risky crypto companies (Silicon Republic)
  • Suncorp Bank continues to market itself as a bank focused on climate preservation (Adnews)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQwcgpFFCJQ

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