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.
Chief Creative Officer Curt Schreiber was published in SmartBrief. His piece, “What B2B Marketers Can Learn from Luxury Brands,” explores how B2B marketers can tap into the same tactics used by high-end consumer goods to create stronger brands and relationships. Read the intro below.
Consumer marketing tactics are frequently regarded as irrelevant by business-to-business sales operations. B2B, after all, is all about thoroughly educating customers and forming deep sales relationships. And it typically has a longer sales cycle than applies to most consumer marketing.
But there is one category of consumer products that faces very similar challenges to the B2B space and may provide a roadmap for how to create more demand: luxury.
Luxury products are outliers in the consumer marketing realm. Just like B2B products, they too require significant differentiation and relationship building. However, unlike many B2B organizations, marketers in the category heighten this relationship with strong brand-building and enhanced customer experiences—not just to acquire new customers, but to turn people into superfans who purchase repeatedly and consistently advocate for these products.
I believe these tactics can offer a wealth of opportunity to B2B marketers.
A personalized touch is a hallmark of both luxury and B2B. Both types of buyers want to be recognized by name and expect special treatment. Whereas B2B often relies on the salesperson to personalize interactions, luxury starts this journey of meeting personal needs much higher in the funnel.
Highly specialized and personalized communications from the start go a long way toward establishing a transaction further down the line. In many ways, it takes the pressure off the salesperson of having to build the relationship from a cold start, warming the customer with a sense that the company as a whole understands them and their needs. But more importantly, it claims some of the loyalty for the brand itself.
From the earliest marketing interactions, successful luxury elevates the perception of being a part of something bigger than one’s self—something that sets you apart from the masses. Whether it’s a cologne with a slightly odd smell or an interior with an unexpected combination of styles, or even a handbag that might be perceived as gaudy, luxury products demand your attention and impart that attention on the buyers themselves. It essentially changes the conversation from “Should I buy this?” to “How can I live without it?” The customer arrives asking the salesperson not how you fit into their life, but rather how they fit into your world.
B2B can easily employ similar tactics. From adding unexpected, custom-feeling design elements to your product to upgrading packaging for a luxury feel to inviting your customers to an exclusive event, B2B marketers have a wide range of opportunities to enhance the look, feel or other memorable element of either the product or the marketing. The result is a vibrant and enjoyable product experience that helps buyers justify their choice, motivates other employees using the product, and boosts their reputation among their peers.
AdForum interviewed VSA Chief Growth Officer Ariadna Navarro to get her thoughts on the future of AI and creativity, and how companies can set ethical, responsible guardrails around the technology. Check out an excerpt below.
It’s a little of both right now. We encourage everyone to use it, but with guardrails and guidelines to keep the work honest, human, and original. At the moment, AI is best suited to things like exploration, evaluation, and experimentation. It can reliably accelerate existing processes—from research and analysis to idea generation and content creation—but it’s equally susceptible to misinformation, redundancies, and both legal and ethical issues that we’re only beginning to understand.
In other words, AI is an exciting, new option in our toolkit, but it’s nowhere near a replacement for any of the ways we work yet.
The accessibility factor is core to AI’s success. It’s incredibly rare for a tool to possess both the low barriers to entry and the near-infinite possibilities that AI represents. The open format and widespread availability of this generation’s AI tools have given them access to an unheard-of volume of perspectives, permutations, and information that’s driving its rapid evolution, but that also comes with increasing risk.
While the exponential growth and innovation of these nascent phases is exciting, it’s also why we can’t afford to lose any more ground in understanding and safeguarding against the dangers and threats it could pose.
VSA’s Marisa Rondinelli, a director of strategy, was recently published by the Association of National Advertisers. Her piece, “Why TikTok Trends Are a Marketer’s Best Friend,” explores why brands should take social media trends seriously, and how doing so creates better products and stronger customer loyalty. She also lays out actionable steps that brands can take to improve their social listening and quickly respond and capitalize on social media trends. Read an excerpt below.
Today’s viral TikTok trends featuring unconventional hacks, secret-menu items and #challenges have led to the emergence of ”TikTok products.” Born from real users rather than the boardroom, these trends are forcing brands to respond, wreaking havoc on supply chains and angering retail workers. Despite this disruption, here’s why they’re the best thing to happen to your business—and how to make the most of it.
As marketers, it’s our job to be the voice of the consumer. We research and we listen, we plan and we predict. Yet we often get it wrong.
Consumers are complicated and unpredictable. Their beliefs don’t match their behaviors, and their preferences don’t translate to purchases we think they will. So when they tell us what they want, it’s on us to listen—and respond.
Yes, these viral-born products, hacks and ideas can create a diversion from approved marketing plans and leave brand and product managers scrambling. Brands may even feel trapped—held hostage by the whims of TikTok trends. But if we look past the initial chaos that’s created, we can see them for what they really are: a gift. Because at their core, they’re built of the stuff marketers’ dreams are made of.
First off, these are authentic endorsements of the brand from trusted voices. Organic exposure from influencers is valuable enough—couple that with the virality of a social media trend, and you have grassroots marketing at its finest. Remember when nostalgic millennials discovered the magic that happens when you put ice cream in a Fruit Roll-Up? These are moments that build both ownership and brand awareness for your business.
Second, these trends are novel solutions rooted in unmet needs. Social media has created a way for brands to connect with customers like never before and what once could only be obtained in listening sessions is now a dialogue that runs 24/7. When trends like the cottage cheese and mustard sensation that captivated the protein-craving community emerge, brands can learn in almost real time what their customers want and how they’d prefer that need to be met.
Lastly, these trends showcase sizable demand that equates to strong conversion. It’s the kind of clear ROI signal you rarely get from other forms of marketing. Take the Peter Thomas Roth eye tightener that has repeatedly sold out since the original viral video gained over 50 million views in 2021. Trends pay off.
To capitalize on these moments, there are a few ways brands can ready themselves for maximum impact:
Top up social listening capabilities to get wind of trends sooner. Better yet, bring creators into the conversation early by creating influencer networks, hosting co-creation sessions, or offering product-previews in exchange for feedback and usage ideas.
Chief Growth Officer Ariadna Navarro recently appeared on “The Unified Brand Podcast,” hosted by Chris Outlaw.
During the show, Ari shared how brands can increase their Moments of Impact® (MOIs) by investing in the brand interactions that matter, and using their brand as a filter to decide which moments have the greatest significance for brand recognition and loyalty.
Thanks to Chris Outlaw and ”The Unified Brand Podcast“ for having Ari on. Listen to the full episode.
Invenergy, the leading privately held developer, owner and operator of sustainable energy solutions, recently launched its new website, marking the culmination of a strategic effort to enhance the dialogue around the clean energy transition that the company has been leading for over 20 years.
The new site focuses on Invenergy’s history, its expansion into new technologies, and showcases the company’s global portfolio and end-to-end clean energy expertise. Notably, Invenergy’s commitment to being a trusted partner and proven pathfinder is a consistent theme throughout the interface.
“Invenergy was founded on an entrepreneurial spirit that guides everything we do, and we wanted to reflect that core value in our new website,” says Randy Frink, Invenergy’s Vice President of Marketing. “As Invenergy continues to experience tremendous growth, our new website serves as an essential resource for our customers, partners and employees who have all been key to Invenergy’s position as the premier provider of clean energy solutions.”
VSA and their partners did a phenomenal job, and we can’t wait to see the response to our new online presence,” says Frink.
Working closely with global creative agency VSA Partners, Invenergy developed a messaging platform and visual design that clearly communicates both its offerings and its proactive commitment toward helping each stakeholder navigate their individual journey through the clean energy space.
“Invenergy’s website truly sets the clean energy leader apart in the industry,” said VSA Associate Partner of Client Engagement Jerry Stiedaman. “The new site invites a dialogue with all of Invenergy’s stakeholders and clearly guides the audience to their desired resource.”
“VSA and their partners did a phenomenal job, and we can’t wait to see the response to our new online presence,” says Frink.
Check out the new site, which is now live.
VSA’s purpose is to design for a better human experience. As a strategy and design 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, New York and San Francisco, VSA offers a full range of fully 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.
Invenergy drives innovation in energy. Invenergy and its affiliated companies develop, own, and operate large-scale renewable and other clean energy generation and storage facilities in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Invenergy's home office is located in Chicago, and it has regional development offices in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Japan, Poland, and Scotland.
Invenergy and its affiliated companies have successfully developed more than 30,000 megawatts of projects that are in operation, construction or contracted, including wind, solar, transmission infrastructure and natural gas power generation and advanced energy storage projects.
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.
