Create Your Pop-Side
From Wall Street to Warhol:
ITG Shows Its “Pop-Side”
Being a strictly business-to-business firm that focuses on the buy-side (asset managers) of investing, Investment Technology Group (ITG) is not a vertical that typically produces highly creative marketing initiatives. However, the firm decided it was time to make a brighter mark in this historically bland landscape, so it generated a new advertising campaign that featured Lichtenstein-like images and copy lines to help set them apart in the marketplace.
As an extension of the traditional advertising campaign, Archer created a fun, hip, engaging microsite that housed an image generator for the ever-so-busy institutional trader. We called it “Create Your Pop-Side.”
Custom Photo Filter Drives Brand Recognition Up, Stress Factor Down
Create Your Pop-Side invited busy asset managers to take a break from their work to create their “Pop Side” – a Pop Art–style image with free-form captions – using our custom-built photo filter. Users had the ability to upload an image or take a fresh shot with their web camera. After the image was Pop-Sided, the user was able to select a prewritten caption or create a custom thought bubble. All text was run through a filter to ensure that the content was industry appropriate.
Sharing Your Pop-Side
To give the online campaign even more pop, Archer added a social element. Users’ creations could be emailed, tweeted, posted on Facebook, or submitted to the PopSide gallery for participation in an ITG-sponsored contest. The winning image received over 22,000 votes and the site received visitors from 4 continents with not much more than word of mouth support.
