SunTrust sunk a significant chunk of its annual advertising budget into Super Bowl 50. The bank used the power of the Super Bowl for the first time, not to flog a product or enhance its name, but to launch a movement.
The bank that’s doing banking differently and its agency, StrawberryFrog, that’s doing marketing differently united to launch onUp, a movement providing the motivation and support for people to gain control of their finances.
StrawberryFrog founder and chief creative officer Scott Goodson, told The Stable why and how.
The ad is interactive in the old-fashioned way. It begins by asking you to do something and notice what you feel:
The Stable: “What you’re feeling now is just like financial stress, it’s just like you’re drowning. Meanwhile, the moments that matter slip away.” A data insight or a personal one?
Scott Goodson: This is close up and personal. Financial stress touches us all. And for the Super Bowl, the media ritual that seems to continue to grow and grow every year, SunTrust wanted to launch a cultural movement to change this, not use their Super Bowl time to show just another bank ad. They wanted to do the complete opposite, to launch a movement in the biggest platform on television.
Movements are about passions, passions bring us together, passions motivate us. This one was based on a stand: to inspire people to move from financial stress to financial confidence.
When I talk with my mom who lives alone or my sisters or my friends, this is real. I honestly don’t know anyone who isn’t feeling financially stressed in some way. Financial stress is bad for your health, for relationships, and while you are busy worrying life passes by.
There is a great deal of research behind the epidemic of financial stress. A 2015 American Psychological Association study, Stress in America: Paying with our Health, found that found nearly three-quarters of Americans feel stressed about their finances.
SunTrust’s own research endorsed that. 41% of Americans told its study that they do not currently have at least $2,000 saved for an emergency (excluding retirement savings). 46% of employed Americans surveyed said they usually run out of money between pay checques. 36% percent of Americans are discouraged, frustrated or depressed about how they manage their money.
TS: SunTrust put a big chunk of its budget into the Super Bowl, its first national Super Bowl ad. Why?
SG: I am really inspired by the men and women at SunTrust Bank. They are a purpose driven bank. SunTrust’s business is not limited by geography, and the movement idea is relevant to all Americans. Also, a majority of banking is done online these days.
SunTrust’s onUp movement is about inspiring people to move onward and upward, to get unstuck and believe that they can take one step at a time to get to a better place. And while this is an election year and people a little fearful, at the same time they want to be inspired with an optimistic message and feel good.
TS: What was the thinking behind putting Cora Slocum in the ad? (There is also a man in a wheelchair.)
SG: SunTrust chose to make use of their Super Bowl spotlight to make a powerful statement that is rooted in the truth on TV and digitally. And to do this authentically we all wanted – the clients and my team – to be genuinely inclusive, and to have as broad a range of people in our work as we could possibly have. We wanted to be honest and open, real and human – and passionate, and we felt strongly that this would stand out against the sea of outlandish or celebrity-dependent Super Bowl advertising.
TS: How hard was it to get the creative execution – visual and voiceover tone of the ad – right?
SG: Years ago, I wrote a commercial and worked with the great actor, Max Von Sydow, and back then, his voice transformed that film into something extraordinary. I learned from this. So for the SunTrust onUp film, we all agreed that we needed someone very special. The film is almost like 60 mini films all tied together, moments of life that we all can relate and connect with. Clearly these moments in the live action film would benefit from a voice that could express passion and make us feel the idea of stress and how it feels to be rid of it. The film asks us to participate by holding our breath from the very start to the end (to get the full effect, try holding your breath while watching it). The script is intentionally challenging at the beginning, with a turning point that brings you to an inspiring conclusion.
To do Craig Love’s script justice, we experimented with many different voices as well as a wide range of music and sound effects over many weeks. We debated and discussed a lot. In the end, we all agreed that the voice had to have importance, strength and empathy. We selected the actor, Gary Sinise, who did a wonderful voice over on the script. We put that onto the film and we had something magical. We felt it was more of a movement film with only Gary’s voice and only the ambient sound effects in each scene rather than including music. That would have made it feel like a regular commercial. You can judge for yourself, but I think this minimalist approach gives the film tremendous power, especially if you place it in the midst of all the noise and talking animals during Super Bowl 50.
The film was a reunion for Goodson with Dante Ariola of MJZ. “…one of the finest directors,” Goodson noted. “I worked with Dante on the award winning Jim Beam commercial starring Willem Dafoe.
TS: Where to from here?
SG: This is just the beginning of the movement, we have much to do. But already, the movement has impressed America and inspired 52,182 people to take the pledge and join – which you can see for yourself on onUp.com.
As well, hundreds of thousands of people have interacted with the movement in social media and in other media.
CREDITS:
Agency: StrawberryFrog
Founder and CCO: Scott Goodson
ECDs: Craig Love and Shayne Millington
Management: Christine Piper, Liz Scordato
Strategy: Beth Knight, Briana Campbell
Producer: Anthony Nelson
Business Affairs: Afsaneh Berjis
Director: Dante Ariola
Production Company: MJZ
Voice: Gary Sinise
Editor: Andrea MacArthur at No6
Sound design: Joseph Fraioliat Jafbox Sound
Sound Mixer: Keith Reynaud at Heard City
Tailpiece: Doing marketing differently at StrawberryFrog begins with being a husband & wife business.
Karin Drakenberg and Scott Goodson founded StrawberryFrog as the world’s first movement marketing agency back in 1999. They are still partners AND married. Karin runs the operations and Scott has run the strategy and creative groups. They have two children together. Karin is Swedish and Scott Canadian.They have lived and worked in NYC for over 11 years.
When they created StrawberryFrog they wanted an agency that did not do advertising but rather gave brands meaning in our lives, touched a nerve, and aligned with those things that we hold to be important and relevant. That’s where the idea of movement marketing – of Cultural Movement – was born.
