Ally Bank is an online-only bank in the United States—positioned as a challenger brand. In 2019, they wanted to expand their appeal to a new target: sports enthusiasts. Choosing the second most popular sport in America, NASCAR racing, they began a sponsorship of a racing team with a 7x champion driver—along with creating a new car design. The designs of the cars themselves are a key element of the sport, with brands spending millions of dollars on car unveilings to generate maximum buzz. Our task was to galvanize fans, particularly on social media, to embrace our entry into NASCAR by earning credibility, especially since we were sponsoring a beloved driver. As a band that promotes smarter savings behavior, we wanted to show that we could generate lots of buzz around our car launch on a smaller budget than other brands.

To launch Ally Bank’s first sponsorship of a NASCAR racing team, we introduced our new car design by secretly hiding it in our driver’s Instagram posts before officially unveiling it. Through an announcement on Instagram, our driver, Jimmie Johnson, announced he’d reveal the car design in a few weeks—creating buzz in the NASCAR community. Then, we strategically hid the car in his ordinary Instagram photos without telling anyone. Fans never noticed until it was discovered and revealed by a sports news outlet a week later. Once they did, fans went back post by post to search for the car. We added tags to the posts, so fans could click through to full photos of the car, which were then circulated among the press as the story spread.

NASCAR racing is the second most popular sport in America. All of the racing teams are sponsored by brands, who use the sport for promotion due to its broad appeal and large fan base. In 2019, Ally, an online-only bank, decided to sponsor its first car and driver team. As a newcomer to the sport, and a challenger brand, Ally needed to create buzz in a crowded space. Most brands introduce their new cars with huge, expensive unveilings costing millions of dollars. As a bank that promotes smarter savings by helping customers’ money work harder, we wanted to generate the most buzz around our car launch with minimum spend. We decided to leverage our driver’s popularity (as a 7x champion of NASCAR) on social media by galvanizing the online community of his fan base with an idea that countered the typical expensive car unveilings.

Ahead of racing season, we had our driver, Jimmie Johnson, announce via social video that he was unveiling our new Ally car in a few weeks. He then began taking regular Instagram photos of subjects typical for him—vacation spots, his kids, training at the track. The images needed to feel authentic so they wouldn’t give anything away. Before he posted them on his Instagram, we added the car in a strategic part of the photo where it wouldn’t easily be spotted. A week later, a news outlet picked up that the car had been hiding in the Instagram feed. Once the news was out, we added tags to each post featuring the car, which linked to full hi-res images to share. From conception to execution, the program spanned only three weeks.

As news of the hidden car broke, fans returned to each of Jimmie Johnson’s Instagram posts to find it, one by one. The response was tremendous – both his Instagram and the racing league’s social handles were praised by fans who found the stunt extremely crafty and unique. Fans shared their enthusiasm with positive comments and popular memes. In addition, sports media outlets picked up the story, spreading it quickly through the racing community.

The work resulted in 5,268 mentions of Ally in the week following our car reveal, 227% higher than average. The effort helped secure nearly 90% positive sentiment on social, unheard of for a financial institution. Our hidden car posts generated over 800,000 impressions, with $0 media spend.

With a few Instagram posts, we cemented a strong social following for our sponsorship and its hero driver – all on a small budget and extremely tight timeline.