Sound of Spending
Interac
Issue 61 | January 2022
Agency
Zulu Alpha Kilo
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Zak Mroueh Executive Creative Director Wain Choi Art Director Michael Romaniuk Writer Marco Buchar Designer Damian Simev, Brian Banton, Zoe Kim Creative Technology Jake Edwards
Production Team
Producers Ece Inan, Greg Hennessy, Adam Palmer, Lauren Schell Production House Zulubot Director Barbara Shearer
Other Credits
Account Team Alyssa Guttman, Kara Oddi, Risa Kastelic Planning Team Sean Bell, Spencer MacEachern PR Agency Hill+Knowlton Strategies French Agency The French Shop Client AVP Marketing and Brand Andrea Danovitch Director of Digital and Integrated Marketing Matt Houghton Marketing Managers Meghan Jeffery, Rachel Kellogg, Chingtien Chang
Date
August 2021
Background
Interac was used by 30 million Canadians a day for sending money electronically but was perceived as a functional brand and had little top-of-mind awareness. As an innovator in the FinTech space, Interac wanted to demonstrate their relevance and technological superiority to Canadians in a creative and tangible way.
Idea
Sound of Spending was the first ever digital tool to transform spending data into music.
For launch, a year and a half of Canadian shopping trends were analysed. Debit spending on food, home, entertainment, travel and shopping were mapped against different musical instruments, revealing the changing spending habits of Canadians over time in a single song. Then a digital tool was developed that let Canadians hear their own personal spending at www.
interac.ca/soundofspending. They simply put in how much they had spent across four different categories and hit play. The proprietary algorithm converted their spending into a song, generating a unique track for every individual.
Results
Over 21,000 unique visitors went to the website during the campaign and 1,700 custom tracks were created with an average time spent on the site 57% above average. The programme garnered over 27 million earned impressions. Coverage included national and international publications and was featured on major Canadian broadcasters.
In social, video completion rates on TikTok were 200% above benchmark and click-through rates for Twitter were 300% above benchmark. YouTube assets saw a conversion rate 38% higher than the industry benchmark with the 15-second and 60-second videos having a CTR 175% higher than the benchmark.
Our Thoughts
Millennials have grown up with companies like Apple, Google and Tesla releasing a steady stream of amazing new products.
They expect constant technological improvement and brands that don’t deliver can become irrelevant scarily quickly.
Interac have learned that it’s not enough to be innovative. You have to be seen to be innovative. A fun little engagement like this will have gone a long way to get Canadians thinking well of the brand. Mind you, my spending music would be a funereal dirge.