Stock broker CMC is doubling down on its advertising in the current economic climate.
The firm's tactical Red Friday campaign, creatively produced by Love & Money, portrays nuanced consumer insight.
The campaign encourages investors to swap bargain hunting at the shops for stocks this sales season, with the overarching question- Why pack wardrobes, when you can pack portfolios?
The campaign is live across socials, OOH and media.
AdNews spoke with Liam Loan-Lack, head of marketing at CMC APAC & Canada who shared insight into the campaign brief and strategic development of the work.
The head of marketing said the goal of the campaign derived from two key issues to solve.
- Driving new accounts to CMC.
- Reactivating existing clients who have not traded in 6/12 months.
He said: “When the financial market is highly volatile, inflation is running higher than many can remember and when disposable cash available to invest is much less than previous years how do we grow market share in a downturn effectively?
“So, we needed a campaign which was genuinely centred around a consumer habit or need, not just promoting a new feature, low fees (brokerage) etc. Finally, we also know that while everyone broadly knows the importance of investing, the inertia in getting started is knowing where to start once an account is opened.
“That is quite intimidating for some clients and so, if we were to overcome the market barrier (i.e. the volatility turning off many investors) we still needed to address the question of ‘what should my first trade be?’”
Loan- Lack said partnering with the creatives Love & Money allowed CMC to broaden its concept further.
He said: “Partnering with our internal creative team and our external partner, Love & Money, we created a broad concept of ‘red means go’- i.e. when the market is down, this is THE best time to invest. Or, as Warren Buffet reminds us “be greedy when others are fearful.”
“While this was a well worn principle of investing, it is hard to put into practice. And given we have account volume targets, we needed to drive interest in the campaign, but in a responsible manner. So, we decided to jump on board the bandwagon of Black Friday / Cyber weekend in our own way to bring to life this principle, driving interest and action.
"We know people like to spend money at this time of year (The Australian Retailers Association and Roy Morgan forecast sales to reach a record “$6.2 billion over the four-day Black Friday to Cyber Monday weekend this year), but that’s usually on consumer goods where those shopping ‘highs’ are short-lived. We want to educate people about how they can spend money, but still enjoy those ‘highs’ over the long-term; investing is a good place to start.
“The campaign idea: Red Friday was born. As Black Friday and Cyber Monday kick-off, we’re encouraging investors to swap bargains at the shops for stocks this sales season. Why pack wardrobes, when you can pack portfolios? With the cost of living increasing and consumers looking to curb their spending, we’re encouraging people to consider the ‘long-term highs’ from owning stocks in their favourite consumer goods rather than the ‘short-term highs’ of buying those goods.
“So, our creative went Red (well Orange in line with our brand guidelines!), and we decided to hero the stocks of companies who many would likely being buying products from this Black Friday/Cyber weekend, to maybe make them think, instead of buying another pair of box fresh Adidas sneakers, how about I buy a share in the company? The market timing has never been better after all.
“To further focus on the consumer context, we decided to execute a different media buy thanks to our partners at Havas Media, to secure placements in high footfall retail centres across the cyber weekend timeframe. This was complemented by a heavyweight YouTube buy reaching those in-market for a stockbroking product along with Social and other supporting OOH formats to drive improved frequency during the campaign period.”
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