FactSet, a global financial digital platform and enterprise solutions provider, has partnered with Chicago-based creative agency VSA Partners to unveil a second round of spots in its “Not Just the Facts” campaign. The campaign originally launched in April this year with impressive results.
The campaign was built on a core strategic insight: While quality data is critical for financial professionals, facts in isolation provide little value. FactSet’s personalization, data connectivity, open and flexible technology, and dedicated service and support provide the context necessary for the investment community to turn facts into valuable insights—and make the most of them.
The new creative picks up where the previous left off. This time it focuses on a particularly boorish office worker, drolly played by character actor Wyndham Maxwell, who ticks off an encyclopedic list of facts and non sequiturs during business meetings and in an elevator to the bemusement of his colleagues.
The tongue-in-cheek campaign, which plays more like a perfect-pitch comedy series than a typical B2B commercial effort, is unlike anything else in the financial services industry—both in its use of humor and in its humanistic approach. Starting this week, FactSet will roll out 16 unique spots—a combination of :30s, :15s, :06s and nine “shorts”—across multiple channels including digital, streaming and CTV.
“We are thrilled with the success of our bold ‘Not Just the Facts’ campaign, which emphasizes what sets the FactSet brand apart: not just the breadth and depth of our data offering, but the intelligent solutions and advanced technology that contextualize it for global finance professionals,” said Jenifer Brooks, Chief Marketing Officer at FactSet. “We’re proud of how the campaign’s direct and relatable tone, which challenges industry norms, has resonated with audiences. As we look toward this next phase of the campaign, we will continue to bring fresh perspectives and empathetic storytelling to demonstrate the value of our offerings.”
The first round of the “Not Just the Facts” campaign earlier this year achieved outstanding results, resonating deeply and driving significant engagement. The spots achieved 193 million impressions with a 98% increase in click-through rates and a 36% rise in video view-through rates across the campaign platform.
“Humor is an incredible way to connect with audiences—and the results we saw in round one of the campaign confirm it,” said Kim Mickenberg, Associate Partner and Executive Creative Director at VSA. “In ‘Not Just the Facts,’ we’ve built a platform that lets us entertain and engage our audiences while telling a really clear, compelling story about what makes FactSet so different. We’re so proud of the work and all the collaboration that went into it.”
Los Angeles–based Docter Twins Matthew and Jason Docter directed the original campaign and this new work through their production company, Thinking Machine. The identical twin brothers grew up in the Midwest and were heavily influenced by classic comedy directors like the Coen brothers and John Hughes. Their work is known for a subtle sensibility that balances smart performance and cinematic style with a witty flair for storytelling.
“It’s tough to choose a favorite line when working with the amazing team at VSA,” said the Docter Twins. “Two of our favorites from this go-round are “‘Trees can recognize their siblings’ and ‘Some dinosaurs had really tiny arms…and could probably only bench press like 400 lbs.’
“VSA’s Kim [Mickenberg], Megan [Schulist, creative director], and Bryan [Haney, motion producer] are never short on ideas.
“And with a client like [global head of brand] Christina Sradj and others at FactSet willing to let us riff, the actors find a playful space and never let up. They were best friends by the end of the shoot, which sums up the fun we all had working together.”
FactSet (NYSE: FDS) helps the financial community to see more, think bigger, and work better. Our digital platform and enterprise solutions deliver financial data, analytics, and open technology to nearly 8,000 global clients, including over 206,000 individual users. Clients across the buy side and sell side as well as wealth managers, private equity firms, and corporations achieve more every day with our comprehensive and connected content, flexible next-generation workflow solutions, and client-centric specialized support. As a member of the S&P 500, we are committed to sustainable growth and have been recognized as one of the Best Places to Work in 2023 by Glassdoor as a Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award winner. Learn more and follow us on X and LinkedIn.
VSA’s purpose is to design for a better human experience. As a strategy and creative agency, we blend consumer insights and data with human-centered design to activate meaningful, motivating and measurable experiences in an increasingly noisy world. With offices in Chicago and New York, VSA offers a full range of integrated capabilities—branding, advertising, data science and technology—all under one roof. VSA is also a proud member of Meet The People, an international family of unified and independent agencies. For more than 40 years, we have delivered solutions for business and creative leaders at some of the world’s most respected brands and forward-thinking organizations, including Google, Nike and IBM.
Thinking Machine is a Los Angeles–based commercial production company specializing in creative storytelling.
VSA's Jerry Stiedaman wrote an article for WARC, “With consumers craving stability, now is the big opportunity for big brands.” Read an excerpt below.
Ongoing consumer uncertainty means that for big brands, it’s time to shine. Despite the call to disrupt and reimagine business—a call that spawned a thousand startups—the national and global turmoil of the past few years (and in the financial sector the past few months) has brought about a significant shift in consumer priorities. The result is a renewed focus on the familiar and reliable.
According to PwC’s February 2023 Global Consumer Insights Pulse Survey, 96% of those surveyed said they were planning on adopting cost-saving behaviors in 2023. The study also showed that 69% of consumers altered their nonessential spending in the previous six months. These statistics show that consumers are adopting much more careful spending habits in 2023, and brands will need to make their offerings feel truly valuable amid growing price sensitivities.
The antithesis of long-lasting value? A company with shady credentials or an unproven track record. Startups have been hit particularly hard with this brand connotation—failures have left thousands of consumers in the lurch. As one example, before its recent sale to e-commerce specialist Retention Brands, the subscription makeup service Birchbox left customers without their monthly boxes for some time. The brand posted a mea culpa on Instagram, citing “a host of unprecedented setbacks that are affecting all of you, our cherished members.” It’s no wonder that people seek safety over novelty.
The startup landscape is also getting walloped by financial factors. Rising interest rates around the world mean they are increasingly vulnerable to competition. VC funding is radically slowing after the worst Q4 since 2013. And the startup-friendly tech sector has seen more than 100,000 layoffs this year. This damage was further compounded by the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in early March. Many startups relied on SVB for banking and payroll—in fact, 88% of Forbes’ “Next Billion-Dollar Startups” were SVB customers.
With startups hurting from financial difficulties and reputation damages, more established brands have a clear opportunity here to reposition their offerings and lean into the demand for safety and consistency with a longevity well suited to the task.
So how does the big brand take advantage of these times? Here are three thought starters:
The last decade has seen a barrage of brands differentiating themselves with a veneer of friendly colors and unconventional marketing tactics. While that might get people in the door, it certainly won’t make them stay. By refocusing on stability and strength, you’re investing in your company’s future: Bain & Company says that “across a wide range of businesses, customers generate increasing profits each year they stay with a company. In financial services, for example, a 5% increase in customer retention produces more than a 25% increase in profit.” Put simply, existing customers spend more than new customers. Plus, their referral potential gives you a free, built-in acquisition machine.
VSA CEO Anne-Marie Rosser was recently published in Forbes magazine with her piece, “How To Accelerate Your Business During A Downturn.” Check out an excerpt below.
The outlook for business right now can feel bleak. Few financial experts can agree on what the economy will look like in even one month. Prices are rising. Customers are nervous. And with such volatile economic headwinds, pulling back and waiting out the downturn might seem like a smart defense. But if we’re honest with ourselves as business leaders, we know that pulling back now is not a defense at all. It’s simply a form of paralysis.
As counterintuitive as it seems, I believe now is the time to play offense. And that doesn’t have to mean spending more. What it does mean, though, is acting bravely and reprioritizing your spend for better effect.
Throughout my decades of experience in the agency world, I’ve gotten insight into a wide range of companies and their tactics for navigating economic volatility. Often, we’ve been working right alongside them. The following tactics are certainly not an all-inclusive list, but they are the mindsets I’ve seen work time and again.
As I lead an agency that cut its teeth in design, I can tell you that designers appreciate constraints—and they’re not alone. Reflecting on your situation and defining the challenges you face is always the best place to start.
A macro example: Most companies have the dual challenge of needing to address both the acquisition of new clients and the retention and growth of existing clients in any given year. But this looks different based on industry and where the company is in its lifecycle, i.e., its circumstances.
Less mature companies or those that are less recession-proof might still need to drive acquisition as the primary focus. Resetting to metrics that drive acquisition in the near term can help focus on limited resources. Conversely, many companies find that retention becomes the primary focus. This move to retention might mean that the budget shifts to more high-touch activations, such as events and in-person workshops—face-to-face time with clients to deepen relationships.
VSA Partners Chief Creative Officer Curt Schreiber recently sat down with Ricardo Esteves of DesignRush to discuss how the digital era changed advertising and branding.
Ricardo and Curt discussed the changing role of traditional branding and advertising, how to be a great desiginer, the biggest trends in advertising and branding and how AI will impact marketing.
Read the full article. Thanks to DesignRush for the feature!
Photo credit: AIGA.
Lux Capital, the revolutionary venture capital firm known for its uncanny ability to identify and fund successful innovators in the science and tech space, believes in the power of brand. That’s why it’s invested in a new brand awareness campaign, including a recent website overhaul with VSA Partners.
Guided by Lux’s mission to turn “sci-fi into sci-fact,” the team at VSA Partners set out to capture the rigorous science-based focus that established the Lux brand while presenting the company as a VC powerhouse that manages a $4 billion portfolio. The new work, which includes identity assets along with a redesigned website, comes at a critical time for Lux, showcasing its evolution from investing at the earliest stages of a company to include growth and late-stage investments as well.
“We have a unique reputation among VC firms,” said Lux Capital Chief Marketing Officer Scott Rubin. “Our partners and associates don’t come from the financial world. They are all scientists and engineers, which enables us to dig in deeper and truly evaluate the viability of scientific innovation or emerging technology. With this refreshed brand identity, we’re breaking the mold for what you expect from a VC firm, but we want investors and innovators to recognize this difference. It’s who we are at our core, and VSA Partners did a phenomenal job of helping us tell that story.”
We approached the UX and content strategy for Lux Capital’s new site with the goal of telling its story by highlighting the companies it grows and the innovations it enables.”
“We’re seeing venture capital become increasingly crowded,” says John Sheehan, Partner, Client Engagement at VSA San Francisco. “Lux Capital’s commitment to expressing their brand is a valuable, differentiating asset that other VCs are simply leaving on the table.”
The redesigned website allows visitors to take a journey through both the firm’s mission and portfolio, showcasing how Lux Capital is every bit as innovative as the startups and established companies in which it invests.
VSA Creative Director Michael Trovela notes, “We approached the UX and content strategy for Lux Capital’s new site with the goal of telling its story by highlighting the companies it grows and the innovations it enables. That direction led to us a site design that emphasizes the interconnectedness between people, companies and ideas. It’s a visual blending of these elements that showcases how the success of Lux Capital’s approach is its own interconnected innovation.”
“We’ve been helping companies realize their brand purpose and lift themselves above the competition for a long time, but this is some of the most rewarding work we’ve ever done,” says Sheehan. “Lux Capital is a firm that’s truly committed to making the world a better place. From biotech startups working on methods for restoring eyesight to firms involved in making workplaces safer through new robotics, they’re consistently at the forefront of science and innovation. The chance to delve into this background and to help them establish the next chapter of their evolution was truly an honor.”
VSA Chief Creative Officer Curt Schreiber joins a select group of agency and industry experts who will choose the winners of this year’s REGGIE Awards. For 40 years, these awards have been a highly anticipated annual showcase from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the U.S. advertising industry’s oldest and largest trade association. The awards recognize campaigns that combine strategy, originality, execution, results and business objectives. Last year’s best-of-show award was taken home by Mischief @ No Fixed Address for its work on the beauty brand eos.
“It’s always fun to see and reward great creative work that builds true business value,” Curt said. “My experience with the REGGIE Awards will be all that much richer because the criteria so closely mirror VSA’s ethos of combining strategy, design and measurement.”
REGGIE Award categories span experiential, digital/social media, sponsorship, influencer, brand purpose, content, B2B and age-specific campaigns. Gold, silver and bronze winners are selected in addition to the best-of-show Super REGGIE, which is drawn from the gold winners. All winners will be revealed at the REGGIE Awards Gala on April 27, 2023, at the ANA Brand Masters Conference in Bonita Springs, Florida.
VSA celebrated its 40th anniversary in November 2022. Longtime clients include Google, Nike and IBM, and VSA has offices in Chicago, New York and San Francisco. VSA belongs to the international family of unified and independent agencies led by Meet The People.
We are honored to share that the work for “Until Justice Just Is” received a Bronze Award in this year’s Anthem Awards. The Anthem Awards, founded by The Webby Awards, celebrate purpose- and mission-driven work from people, companies and organizations worldwide.
VSA developed “Until Justice Just Is” in collaboration with the YWCA, a group famous for its advocacy and support for women. But the organization has also stood on the front lines of eliminating racism for well over a century, and during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, it wanted a way to invite people to join its mission—and empower them to make a real, measurable impact. The site gives individuals and companies a place to publicly pledge their support for antiracist efforts, access tools and resources to use in their own communities, and join the YWCA’s Racial Justice League, where they can share best practices and hold each other accountable for change.
Congratulations to the current VSAers who contributed to this work: Kim Mickenberg, Avery Gross, Jess Sochol, Susan Pfeifer, Emily Gorski, Bryan Haney, Sam Stalling and Amy Bretz.
And to the rest of the team: Chrystine Witherspoon, Elle Abarca, Evan Thompson, Melanie Trombley, Tré Seals at Vocal Type, Darrell Booker, Daniel Delgado, Ben Strang at Sarofsky and post-production audio house Another Country.
