WF (A large California-based bank)

Working with our friends at Wayfinder, we were tasked with solving a pretty important communications problem: how do you let college kids who don’t have a way to pay their bills know that there actually is a way. To support a major media rollout in three key university markets—and in selected other cities across the country—we had to come up with a campaign that accomplished three key objectives: 1) enrolled students in loan programs; 2) established WF as the best source for affordable funding for higher education; 3) introduced the brand to college-age Wachovia customers (WF acquired Wachovia in 2008 and many of our target schools were in former Wachovia territory).

Our campaign concept “Thrivology: the science of maximized college living,” allowed us to achieve our three objectives while simultaneously positioning WF as a source of useful information on campus. Leveraging the insider knowledge of field reps on the ground, we crafted localized messages for buses, transit stations, college newspapers, campus locations, and the web that offered tips on how best to ‘live the good life’ on a budget in that specific neighborhood.

The program was a massive 100-campus, multi-media (print, outdoor, direct, digital, guerilla/street, etc.) rollout for the bank’s Educational Financial Services group. So while we were tasked with making WF hip, cool, and relevant to college students, we had to be very careful of not overstepping the boundaries of the brand.