Member Exclusive

‘Brand is the tide that lifts all boats’: Inside the evolution of Varo’s brand

  • Varo’s ambitious “A bank for all of us” campaign highlights its maturation into a national bank.
  • The bank's chief brand officer spoke at Tearsheet’s Acquire Conference about building a next generation challenger bank brand.
close

Email a Friend

‘Brand is the tide that lifts all boats’: Inside the evolution of Varo’s brand

Varo’s emergent evolution from a mobile app to a national bank has allowed it to expand its services for a growing customer base. The challenger bank has shaped its brand strategy to mirror this expansion by recently launching its multi-million dollar brand campaign “A bank for all of us” across television, radio and Super Bowl advertising slots. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ2jSaHvNX4

The campaign champions financial opportunity, diversity and inclusion by emphasizing America’s local communities. It reimagines money by featuring ordinary Americans as the faces on a $20 bill. The ambitious campaign is a major milestone for the young brand. 

Varo’s chief brand officer Halle Hutchison spoke at Tearsheet’s 2021 Acquire Conference about what it takes to build a growing challenger bank brand for the next generation. According to Hutchison, the community oriented bank aims to position itself as a lifestyle brand in order to forge a more meaningful relationship with consumers.

“From a business standpoint you have to compare yourselves to similar brands and similar product offerings,” said Hutchison “But from a brand standpoint, we really want to reach higher than that and become a brand that people are proud of, that they're proud to be associated with beyond finances and where they feel like Varo is doing something important in the community.”

Hutchison has previously worked with a variety of tech companies, including heading marketing at Rover.com and Expedia, helping them mature and expand their brands. Her work at Varo has also been focused on shaping the fintech’s brand strategy to lure larger mainstream audiences while remaining loyal to its vision of financial inclusion and empowerment. 

SPONSORED

“You'll see we're showing community members. We call them the makers, the doers, and the creators, the people that wear uniforms. You see everyday that this is the bulk of America, and that's who we're showing in our ads, not the 10 percent,” said Hutchison. 

Varo’s venture into brand marketing to match its growth into a national bank has allowed it to engage with hard to reach customers previously untapped from direct marketing efforts. 

Hutchison recommends channelling brand marketing outside the regular confines of performance marketing to move beyond plateaus in growth when it comes to gaining customers. 

“If you start out just with what I call ‘buy me now’ product messaging, you can acquire customers. I mean, some customers will come in, but they're usually much more fickle,” said Hutchison. 

Brand marketing efforts such as TV ads might be expensive but rewarding in the long run in  attracting high value customers who deliberately choose to build long lasting relationships with a brand.

Varo uses a combination of marketing strategies by layering its brand marketing onto its performance and direct marketing for additive impact.

“What you find over time is that brand is the tide that lifts all boats,” said Hutchison. “So over time, performance marketing becomes much more efficient because people are sensitized to the brand and so and it goes all the way through the funnel.”

“Even when you're after a customer, if you're encouraging repeat usage, that repeat usage goes up, because the brand is so dominant, and is just a part of their lives.”

0 comments on “‘Brand is the tide that lifts all boats’: Inside the evolution of Varo’s brand”

10-Q, Member Exclusive

Behind Citizens Bank’s evolving strategy in a crowded BNPL market

  • Citizens Pay's Christine Roberts shares insights on how Citizens Pay has evolved since its inception and if it has an edge over fintech BNPL lenders.
  • In other news, Arm and Instacart IPOs could be meaningful for Goldman Sachs to open new doors of revenue and IPO fees for the Wall Street firm.
Sara Khairi | September 25, 2023
10-Q, Member Exclusive

Chasing ambitions: SoFi elevates its game by participating in underwriting the Instacart IPO

  • Underwriting part of the Instacart IPO can be a big shot for SoFi, which went public in 2021 and is best known for student loan refinancing.
  • Also, Wall Street banks added modest gains to the IPO Index last week.
Sara Khairi | September 18, 2023
10-Q, Member Exclusive

Dime Community Bancshares steps into healthcare lending as part of its commercial banking expansion

  • Dime makes a move into the healthcare sector to offer financing solutions and support capital-intensive projects.
  • The CFPB is keeping tabs on Apple’s policy of limiting access to the NFC chip technology that makes Apple Pay the only mobile payment service that utilizes the ‘tap and go’ technology embedded in iOS devices limiting other companies from developing their own tap-to-pay apps for Apple devices.
Sara Khairi | September 11, 2023
10-Q, Member Exclusive

Better.com’s shiny IPO debut: Can the mortgage lender pave its way to become a Wall Street darling?

  • Can Better.com gain Wall Street's respect?
  • Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday warned that additional interest rate increases could be yet to come, as inflation is still above where policymakers feel comfortable.
Sara Khairi | August 28, 2023
10-Q, Member Exclusive

‘We still need to earn the trust of millions of Americans who are experiencing digital banking for the first time’: Dave’s Jason Wilk

  • Jason Wilk, CEO and founder of Dave, talks about second quarter results, challenges for neobanks at large, and what's in store for the firm in the months ahead.
  • Marqeta shares popped 8% last week as the firm extended its alliance with its largest customer, Block, through 2027 for transaction services for Cash App and Afterpay.
Sara Khairi | August 21, 2023
More Articles