TD Bank wanted to make a splash at the Super Bowl with a banking spot that didn’t feel like a banking spot. We started here: The 2023 Superbowl was happening during a time of considerable financial stress for many people. Yet, in a time when no topic seems to be off-limits and financial stress was peaking, money seemed to remain taboo… 55% of Canadians said they actively avoided talking about money.

TD had always believed in the power of financial advice, but the current economic uncertainty and the insight around the discomfort on the topic made the message even more important… There’s no reason people should feel like they need to figure it out alone. The goal? Confront people’s hesitation around having the ‘money talk’, and position TD as the safe place to have it, with approachable advisors offering trusted advice. 

Because we were launching during the Super Bowl and wanted this spot to feel international, we cast in three cities: Toronto, Vancouver and Los Angeles. Working with different casting houses, we directed our search towards talent that had comedic and improv backgrounds to help us push the performance beyond what was on the page. Where the challenge came in was that we weren’t looking for big performances or broad comedy – we needed actors who could convey the subtle humor of the idea without needing to slip on the banana peel. We ended up with a diverse cast that landed the awkward conversation concept, without making the spot feel awkward.   

To achieve the above, we aimed to drive awareness around one of TD’s three brand pillars, trusted advice, and increase brand favourability. The campaign remains in market, but so far we’ve seen the following results…

To drive awareness, over 136M impressions were achieved digitally in the first seven weeks; and over 1,800 GRPs have been delivered via TV.

This has resulted in TD’s Taboo Talk driving best-in-class Ad Recall results +209% over the Financial Services benchmark in our OLV Brand Lift Study.

In terms of Favourability, we also saw a best-in-class lift of +235% versus the Financial Services benchmark in our OLV Brand Lift Study.

And perhaps most notably, we have seen significant consumer behaviour shifts, with a huge influx of people seeking out advice from TD advisors. Since the launch of the campaign, visits to the TD advice landing page increase by 165% MoM (Jan vs. Feb 12th- 20th).