For its inaugural large-scale campaign, LowestRates.Ca has a simple, yet lofty goal: to become the preeminent brand when consumers think of personal finance.
It’s a long road ahead for the financial technology startup, co-founder and CEO Justin Thouin admitted. But the online site, which aggregates rates for financial services like mortgages and auto insurance, is ploughing forth with a full-scale a multiplatform approach to getting its name out there.
“We haven’t really been a [known] brand,” Thouin told MiC. “To date, most of our traffic comes from online search, when people search things like ‘cheap car insurance.'”
Media for the campaign was handled by Dentsu Media, with creative, social and PR by a combination of freelance and in-house talent.
Because personal finance is a subject that affects every demographic, Thouin said the campaign’s goal was to embark on a wide-scale, mixed-media campaign, with targeted buys to reach diverse demographics.
Perhaps the company’s most sought-after demographic is the digital native. “Millennials are important because they are more comfortable doing transactions online, so we can target them through sites and services that they already use,” Thouin said.
Which is why the campaign has a mix of youth-facing digital and OOH components, among them short-form YouTube videos, which range from 15 to 30 seconds, and OOH placements, which include transit shelter takeovers across the GTA and night projections in downtown Toronto’s entertainment district.
“We want to be out where the people are. If you’re young and you’re out at an Adele concert, or the Tragically Hip concert that was just in town, or just at bars and restaurants, our goal is to reach the most people at one time.”
For older and financially-savvy customers, the company has opted for homepage takeovers of news sites like The Globe and Mail and The Financial Post, where it hopes to reach more solvent audiences.
“Those are the type of people who might have a larger mortgage, they might have more cars, and they might have more money to spend,” Thouin said.
There’s also a wider-reach buy in place using the radio medium, which includes ads on traditional stations such as 680 News and Edge, as well as on millennial-focused online music streamer Spotify.
The OOH advertisement and homepage takeover began Aug. 1 and will continue through mid-September. YouTube spots went live in mid-August and will be promoted until the end of December. The company also plans to launch online targeted banner ads using Google AdWords and Facebook Advertising.
While Thouin was mum on the exact numbers, he estimated that traffic to the company’s homepage had doubled since the start of the campaign, and the four YouTube videos have received more than 200,000 views in total since posting.
Pictured: LowestRates.Ca’s night projection advertisement on King St. in downtown Toronto
