Chime, a financial technology company and the country’s “#1 most loved banking app™,” has been on a mission for more than 10 years to help people make money moves that progress them forward. They helped change the center of gravity in the financial services sector: from bank-first to member-first. With a passion to increase accessibility and bring fairness and transparency to the industry, Chime has continued to lead the way toward helping everyday people unlock their financial progress.
Though Gen Z and millenials pioneered the “oversharing” culture and brought dialogue about sex, religion and politics into the mainstream, a recent Chime survey revealed that digital-native generations confessed (80%) there’s still one topic they’d rather not touch: M-O-N-E-Y. Knowing how cringe-worthy and taboo talking about money can be, Chime sought out to break the silence and fuel the family conversation to make the uncomfortable… comfortable.
In June, families gather to celebrate occasions like Father's Day and graduation. With this in mind, Chime set out to break the silence when it comes to unlocking candid money conversations by creating a campaign that would unite families. To do this, Chime developed and launched a limited drop table topics card game and a creative campaign that garnered more than 100 million impressions.
Everyone was taught that talking about money is taboo. But Chime is all about unlocking financial progress for you and your family. So we created an easy way to start the conversation, over a deck of cards. To tackle this objective, Chime aimed to get families talking by launching an interactive new table topic card game, “For the Love of Money: A Family Game that Just Makes Cents.”
Leaning into the cultural trend of viral card games, Chime launched their game with 150 question prompts ranging from ‘Would you rather live in a tiny house in a great location, or in a fancy mansion next to a massive garbage dump?” to “You’ve won the lottery! Do you take the lump sum or the installment payments?” The game starts by tackling lighthearted topics and builds into deeper connections by asking players to share experiences, opinions and attitudes. The deck of cards consists of four money-minded categories: trivia, would-you-rather, that-time-when and tell-me-more. Chime partnered with innovative game and media developer Cut to bring the game to life.
To support the game launch, Chime developed a marketing initiative targeting Gen Z and millennials that featured conversation-starting organic social content amplified through paid media across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. A custom landing page at chime.com/gamenight was leveraged to generate email capture where users could submit their email for the chance to win a game from the limited drop. People were sent to the landing page through lifecycle marketing, organic social, paid social, influencer content and co-authored social posts with our social content and production partner, Cut.
The campaign further came to life through strategic collaborations with talented influencers, including Kayla Kosuga, Nic Suarez, Maggie Thurmon, alongside additional content creators. Kayla brought the essence of Chime’s table topics game, "For the Love of Money," to the forefront as she played it with her husband. Similarly, Nic Suarez infused the game with familial bonding, participating in lively rounds with his brother and father. Meanwhile, Maggie played the game with her parents, which resulted in some highly engaging content that resonated with her online fans.
The online narrative gained even more depth with the creation of a three-part series of short-form content, co-authored in collaboration with the game producer, Cut. These videos, titled "Bad Friend," "Trophy Spouse," and "Spending Money," drew inspiration from "Billy on the Street.” In these videos, a charismatic Chime representative posed thought-provoking questions to individuals in the midst of their daily routines, resulting in a collection of captivating scenarios and eccentric responses.
To bolster the campaign, Chime commissioned a survey to learn key consumer insights on the topic, such as Millennials and Gen Z confessed (80%) they’d rather tackle sex, religion and politics topics with their family than have a conversation about M-O-N-E-Y.
The For the Love of Money campaign success can be attributed to its blend of social media content and influencer partnerships. The incorporation of interactive storytelling coupled with the limited drop of “For the Love of Money” drove 116 million impressions, 1.1 million engagements, 801K direct site visits and 161K submission requests for the game via the landing page on Chime.com.
One of the videos that was produced went viral on TikTok even after the campaign concluded. Episode three titled, “Bad Friend” was elevated to TikTok’s “For You” page organically and received roughly 3.6 million views, with 99.3% of the views coming from the “For You” page. Even after the dust settled the social content continued to generate millions of impressions. A TikTok follower of Nic Suarez commented, “This game looks like so much fun … families that communicate are stronger and closer.”