Fintech bets on influencers for branding

It makes sense that brands in sexy verticals like fashion and hair care are turning to social media influencers. But banking brands also employ influencers.

A recent example is Kasasa, a fintech company launched in 2003 that partners with local credit unions and community banks to offer discounts and attract people looking to open or switch accounts.

Last month, Kasasa ran a recent video campaign with a twist on the “in-store” trend.

YouTube and TikTok personality Trey Kennedy plays a small-town “hipster” who brags about only buying from local shopkeepers — at one point boasting that he’s so local he has a “radish guy” — until another version of himself in a suit points out that it’s great to buy vegetables and hats from local businesses, but what about banking?

“Everyone is obsessed with local coffee shops and locally sourced food, but they don’t think about local financial institutions,” Kennedy told AdExchanger.

One reason banking isn’t part of the “retail room” millennial agenda is because it’s not trendy, nor is it easy. “Going into an alternative to Starbucks is a lot easier than opening a new checking account,” Kennedy said.

But banking with community-based financial intuitions is what helps fund the loans that keep the small businesses millennials love afloat, said Kasasa CEO Gabe Krajicek.

Hip to be square

Still, it’s hard to convince millennials that the small business category includes banks.

In the ’90s, most Americans did business with local credit unions and community banks, Krajicek said. Now local institutions have less than 20% of the market share. (More on the history of “megabanks” here.)

Kasasa is going after a contracting audience, which is why the latest campaign is about “pure branding,” Krajicek said.

The campaign is also a step towards investing more in original content.

“Influencers are how we can reach and appeal to more target consumers in addition to other old white men,” Krajicek said.

But while partnering with a popular influencer like Trey Kennedy is a useful way to gain more awareness, building a brand isn’t enough, he acknowledged, and a small fintech company like Kasasa needs to use it wisely.

“We’re small — a lot of our growth is grassroots activation right now — but we plan to continue working with influencers to complement what we’re doing with a little boost of prestige,” Krajicek said. “And because it’s cool.”

Kasasa currently represents 700 financial institutions spanning 3,400 branches and 3 million accounts across the country.

For now, Kasasa is focused on the upper funnel because it needs to expand its customer base. It measures engagement with Kennedy based on engagement with individual financial institutions, which it does by linking ad exposure to new accounts each financial institution reports opening.

Because the campaign runs primarily on Instagram and YouTube, Kasasa is also looking for social media engagement with the video as a measure of intent.

“Customers who are considering potentially banking at local institutions are more likely to open an account if they see other people who support those banks online,” Krajicek said. “It’s social validation.”

Money problems

But the campaign has another target group in addition to millennials: the financial institutions themselves.

Kasasa hopes that better branding for the service will motivate other financial institutions to register with Kasasa.

Other campaigns Kasasa has run in the past for specific financial institutions led to about a 50% increase in account openings, Krajicek said.

But finance is a sensitive vertical when it comes to advertising and data use, and Kasasa has had to deal with a number of challenges in how they market themselves.

In 2014, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) ruled that Kasasa is a deposit broker, not a financial institution, so it cannot market itself as one.

“Before, our ads drove customers straight to Kasasa.com,” Krajicek said. “Now we have to say that a certain institution ‘carries’ Kasasa.”

That’s why the tone of this campaign, which is not tied to any specific financial institution, is more like a satirical PSA rather than a pitch to drive visitors to Kasasa’s website.

Now that the waters have settled following the FDIC’s ruling, Krajicek said, Kasasa is back to focusing on its branding.