The financial literacy rate has continued to drop since 2009. With the explosion of TikTok as a medium for musicians and financial experts across the platform, Ally saw an opportunity to disrupt the Millennial and Gen Z audiences with financial education in a unique way. Ally’s core belief is that in life, we’re all better off with an ally. The charge was to reframe financial education & help people understand money in a fun, approachable, and engaging way - ultimately impacting the lives of young people for the better & having them consider our bank vs the traditional big banks of previous generations.

Ally sought to find a more effective way to help young people learn about the complicated topic of finance: through a crowd-sourced hip hop track that would come to life on TikTok. With music being a proven approach to education, we teamed up with @MoneyCoachVince, a financial TikTok influencer, and @CharlieCurtisB, a TikTok rapper - an unlikely yet successful pairing - to kick off the track aimed at saving & being smart with money, rather than spending it. Fans & commenters asked questions about their own finances & goals, which ultimately served as lyrics for the final song. As an added surprise, Ally shocked engagers & the creators themselves with an additional feature from @TobiLou, a popular rapper beyond the platform. The added collaboration took the song to the next level, inviting more audiences into the journey and momentum for the final release.

The financial literacy rate has continued to drop since 2009. A study showed that while 36% of students had taken a class that covered financial topics in school, they still felt unsure about their finances. In fact, 2⁄3 of Americans cannot pass a basic financial literacy test. It’s not surprising - money is a complicated topic and the harsh reality is that finances are not being taught in schools in a way that’s compelling. At the same time, we’ve seen a renaissance in education in the world of TikTok, with hashtags like #edutok having 160 billion views. Additionally, the platform has changed the face of music, making it a core part of the social experience. By bringing together these seemingly disparate worlds, we could approach financial education in a way that is both community-driven and actually impactful for our Millennial and Gen Z audiences.

The rollout on TikTok was thoughtfully crafted to invite commenters to share their own financial woes, allowing our creators to weave those aspects of finances into the song and show the journey of creating it alongside the audience. The campaign ran for 5 weeks from 10/10 through 11/18, with an average of two videos a week posted across Ally and influencer channels. This allowed us to create a constant drumbeat of engagement with consumers in combination with paid support on TikTok.

Video content was built to be native to TikTok, integrating popular formats and features of the platform that typically perform well, including green screens to behind-the-scenes videos. Through this content approach, we gave our influencers the spotlight while increasing our reach, allowing them to educate consumers in an engaging way across a breadth of videos, and yielded 140M impressions and counting for Ally.

In the end, the campaign was a massive success, receiving thousands of collaborative comments & answering hundreds of financial education questions. The song, and the journey of its creation, has over 25 million video views (and counting), 140 million impressions, increased Ally’s followership by 53%, & received 95% positive sentiment, proving the digital bank as a key ally in the fight against financial illiteracy.