Mondex Canada has launched the full consumer test of its electronic cash card in Guelph, Ont. with an integrated campaign from Bozell Worldwide of Toronto.
The campaign uses newspaper and radio as the primary media, with support coming from transit, mall posters, convenience store signs and direct mail.
The advertising will run for a full year with the creative shifting every two months to focus on different benefits of Mondex, the first being ease of use.
A series of community events are also planned throughout the year, including promotions with some major merchants.
The advertising touts Mondex – a reloadable plastic card that stores cash value on an embedded microcomputer chip – as ‘Simply more than money.’
In a departure from the typical approach taken by financial institutions, humor plays a role in the creative, with cartoon illustrations rather than real people used for the visuals.
‘In terms of the creative approach, the idea is really to dramatize everyday frustrations with cash,’ says Chris Foster, Bozell account director on the business. ‘The cartoon approach allowed us to over-dramatize that in a very friendly way.’
The other objective, says Foster, was to distinguish Mondex from the host of standard financial services. ‘We wantedto make it very approachable from a consumer perspective.’
Mondex is an independent payments organization owned by 17 institutions worldwide. cibc and Royal Bank are the global founders of Mondex in Canada.
