There are more checking accounts in America than there are TVs in living rooms. That’s how crowded the category is. As one financial industry consultant put it: “Advertising for Checking Accounts is like screaming into a hurricane.” The bigger challenge? While some advertisers understand that brand media is critical for filling the funnel, most struggle to demonstrate a clear connection between brand investment and bottom-line growth, especially with long purchase cycles.
We know shouting louder isn’t the answer. Instead, we focused on smarter media planning and rigorous testing. We designed a campaign that would build upper-funnel awareness while also using a controlled test-market strategy to measure tangible business outcomes. Hypothesis 1: Markets exposed to brand media would achieve an increase in lift compared to control markets. Hypothesis 2: Media-active markets would outperform matched non-media markets in both account openings and deposit growth.
