Challenger bank Monzo, recognisable for its hot coral debit cards, wants to “supercharge” growth – which is already strong and sustained – with its first-ever major ad campaign.
The banking platform has relied mainly so far on word-of-mouth, a strategy that’s managed to earn it upwards of 1 million users.
It was also the recipient of the “quickest crowdfunding campaign in history”, achieving a total of £1 million in just 96 seconds back in 2016.
Now, it hopes to bolster that growth – it currently sees sign-up rates of 50 to 100,000 every month – with paid advertising.
The campaign goes live in the second quarter of this year, and can be seen in OOH locations, on Facebook and Google, and in a selection of offline media.
Monzo engaged in an advertising test in October 2018, putting OOH ads on the London Underground covering topics such as its eye-catching card colour, the number of sign-ups, and positive user testimonials. All signs point to this campaign as having gone fairly well.
Monzo representatives say that where the word-of-mouth/paid split currently sits at 80:20 and may move towards the 50:50 point at times, there will never be an overrepresentation of paid advertising in comparison to its community-driven approach.
They hope keenness and enthusiasm stays high, and people keep encouraging family and friends to get their hands on a hot coral card.
Joshua Althauser 
Alan Samson