2025 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

TD Easy Trade is a self-directed investing app for new investors. It launched at the Super Bowl in 2022 with a campaign that showed novice investors that they too could become investors. In fact, investing doesn’t have to be as hard as “finance bros” would have you believe.

Since then, TD Easy Trade has continued to invest in the Super Bowl. It’s the perfect mass audience, capturing the interest of over 10 million Canadians. It also gets a lot of people talking about the teams, the halftime show, and, of course, the ads.

This year, TD Easy Trade wanted to continue its presence in the Super Bowl, driving awareness and consideration for the app, and increasing the number of app downloads, but there was a twist. The TD Easy Trade ad slotted in for the Super Bowl would be one that had already aired, which revealed an opportunity to create something new that was not a TV ad but could still capitalize on the Super Bowl advertising frenzy.

They knew that novice investors often invest in things they’re interested in. That’s because it’s an easy and intuitive way to get started: focus on what you already know.

They also knew that millions of Canadians watch the Super Bowl for the ads, but it was what they found next that opened up the entire campaign.

Brands that advertise in the Super Bowl outperform the stock market by 1%.

It might not seem like much, but research revealed that it was a legitimate investing strategy: focus on the brands that advertise during the Super Bowl and watch your portfolio grow.

“The TD Super Portfolio”: a portfolio of companies that are advertising during the Super Bowl.

They made investment decisions easy for new investors, creating a virtual portfolio of companies that are advertising in the Super Bowl so that customers can easily invest in something they know and love (with the added benefit that these stocks could potentially go up in value).

They found out who was advertising during the Super Bowl and turned their ads into their ads.

The message was simple, invest in the big game by literally investing in the brands that advertise during the game. For every ad people saw during the game (or on a website leading up to the game), they had a corresponding ad directing people to the TD Easy Trade landing page.

In the creative, the agency showcased images of the products that were advertised during the Super Bowl, the associated stock symbol, and a call-to-action to start investing with partial shares through TD Easy Trade. The approach was simple: give people exactly what they need to start investing.

The campaign rolled out in real time with a dedicated task force tracking the Super Bowl ads — both during the lead-up to the big game and on Super Bowl Sunday. The task force quickly turned those ads into ads of their own, promoting TD Easy Trade with every Super Bowl commercial.

The ads were featured on YouTube, beside the referenced Super Bowl ads, as well as online, in social, and in out-of-home. The OOH was strategically placed near locations where the advertised brands could be found, such as in the concourse of Union Station, where they advertised investing in Pepsi, for example.

Strategic planning found the simple but incredibly compelling stat: brands that advertise in the Super Bowl outperform the stock market by 1%.

It was this discovery that directly led to the idea. The creative team jumped on it and quickly saw a solution, asking what if they created a portfolio of Super Bowl stocks? Strategic planning then validated that this was indeed a credible investment strategy and that it aligned with the target audience’s behaviour, investing in things that interest them.

This campaign hacked the Super Bowl, keeping TD Easy Trade in the conversation during the leadup and on game day without a new TV ad.

The campaign drove the desired results. It increased ad awareness by +114%, increased consideration by 27% and increased the average number of daily app downloads by 500%.

It also drove a lot of interest in TD Easy Trade with a 270% lift in organic search volume and a 300% lift in landing page visits. This low-budget Super Bowl campaign not only drove awareness and interest, but it also drove app downloads at a reduced cost per install of $3.50, which is a 61% decrease compared to last year.

Credits

Creative Agency: Leo Toronto
President: Ben Tarr
Managing Director, Account Services: Natasha Dagenais
Chief Strategy Officer: Tahir Ahmad
Chief Creative Officer: Angus Tucker
Rachel Poad: EVP, Portfolio Lead
Rebecca Hickman: VP, Account Director
Krzysztof Iwanicki: Account Director
Noah Feferman: Creative Director
Robin Soukvilay: Senior Art Director
Evan Wallis: Senior Copywriter
London Choi: Senior Copywriter
Danielle Zablocki: Senior Art Director
Ryan Roberts: SVP, Group Strategy Director
Zaid Khan: Strategy Director
Kaitlyn Balmer: Senior Producer
Gord Cathmoir: VP, Post and Print Production
Jon Krogh: Senior Retoucher
Peter Guzda: Editor

Sound Production: Pirate Sound

Media Agency: Unison Media
Nicolle Williams: Account Director, Media Planning
Christina Pereira: Associate Director, Media Planning
Raghav Budhraja: Senior Planner, Media Planning

Media Agency: MSL Canada
Sarah Burns: Vice President
Paulami Mehta: Account Director
Liam Oldershaw: Account Manager
Aly Tsourounis: Media Relations Strategist

Client: TD Canada
Maja Neable: Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, Canada
Michael Letsche: VP, Wealth Marketing
Michael Armstrong: VP, Brand Marketing
Ryan Kalsi: AVP, TD Direct Investing Marketing
Sarah Green: AVP, Brand Marketing
Brad Buset: Senior Manager, Brand Marketing
Mary Jane Ardron: Marketing Manager, TD Direct Investing Marketing
Bhavin Lad: Senior Manager, TD Direct Investing Marketing
Natasha Ferrari: Senior Manager, Corporate and Public Affairs