Chase Launches Sports Ambassador Led 'Masters' Campaign During The Masters

JP Morgan Chase extended its ongoing ‘So You Can’ marcoms concept with a new athlete ambassador-led campaign called ‘Masters’ that rolled out during 2015’s first golf major and yet, despite being sport-themed and running during baseball and tennis programming, was oddly unrelated in any way to the golf tournament with which the initiative shares a name.

Designed to highlight its consumer banking products, ‘Masters’ is led by a primary 60-second anthem advert featuring Chase ambassadors Serena Williams (tennis), Tim Morehouse (tennis) and The Rockettes.

The campaign, developed with New York agency McGarryBowen, contrasts the years and years these stars took to perfecting their skills with the mere seconds it takes to pay bills, deposit cheques and transfer funds using the Chase website and mobile app.

‘What you see in the film is struggle and hardship and the desire for perfection,’ outlines McGarryBowen chief creative officer Mark Koelfgen.

‘The agency purposefully selected an electic mix of stars for the push. We didn’t want to have five Serenas. When we looked at the mix, it felt right.’

There is a further set of TV spot iterations – each with a specific focus on each ambassador:

Additional webfilm work includes a 90-second online spot profiling The Rockettes (exploring what goes into each performance, the years of intense dance training it took the performers to get where they are and showing how dancers who only get one day off a week can benefit from using Chase’s consumer banking products while multitasking backstage).

Brian Belectic, who also helmed the Adidas ‘Unstoppable’ commercial , directed the sspots.

The TV and webfilm work is supported by social media, sponsorship and in-branch efforts.

Chase is also sponsoring content in Time’s ‘Fortune’, ‘Real Simple’, and ‘Time’ magazines – with advice columns by leaders in related fields such as entrepreneurship, interior design and life coaching – accompanied by digital display ads online.

With a heavy sports event media buy, the campaign launched during Major League Baseball Opening Day coverage on ESPN2 and it also appeared in certain markets during the NCAA Basketball Finals on CBS.

Later in the year, the spots featuring Serena Williams will be pushed during the US Open as part of Chase’s sponsorship, and those with the Rockettes will air during the holiday season.

‘Like any good story, you unveil new chapters as the story goes along,’ adds Vieira.

‘[It’s] one of the things we wanted to do to keep the campaign fresh.’

Comment

While it makes sense for a campaign fronted by sports brand ambassadors to run during mainstream and ambassador-relevant sports events (as Chase is doing with MLB and with Serena Williams and the US Open)

Does it make sense to launch a campaign called ‘Masters’ during The Masters golf tournament, when none of the ambassadors are golfers and none of the media buys revolve around the tournament?

Is this a cunningly exploitative form of sports event ambush, or just bad planning?

Either way, this is one of JP Morgan Chase’s largest consumer banking campaigns and aims to reach the growing number of consumers who bank digitally.

The Chase marketing tactics emerged after it commissioned research exploring the recent US-wide shift in customer banking habits.

Some 19 million Chase customers now use the bank’s mobile app – up 20% from last year.

While mobile deposits are up 30%, ATM deposits are up 10% and peer-to-peer payments are up 70%.

‘Ultimately it’s about empowering people to live the lives they want,’ explains Chaase Consumer Banking CMO Donna Vieira.

‘Our role is really to make it easier for customers by allowing them to bank on their terms.’

‘It’s the way our customers want to bank,’ adds Vieira.

‘We decided we were going to show people how fun and easy it is to do digital banking.’

The campaign, which is primarily designed to educate consumers about the bank’s full capabilities, is part of a broader campaign by McGarryBowen for JP Morgan Chase called ‘So You Can’ – which aims to switch away from promoting specific products and move towards showing how the bank can simplify consumers’ lives.