JPMorgan Chase spotlights Detroit’s economic comeback in new local marketing push

After being dealt a brutal economic blow in the wake of the Great Recession, Detroit is experiencing a comeback—and JPMorgan Chase wants you to know it. The financial giant is featuring the city in the first local extension of its national “Make Happen” campaign, and is showcasing its multimillion-dollar investments in the city through the local leaders benefitting from them. The local ads, created by New York-based SS+K, star four Detroit clients who are affecting positive economic and societal change in the Motor City: Marcus Jones, housing developer and owner of Detroit Pizza Bar; Dana Williams, chief strategy officer of workforce agency Detroit at Work; Deana Neely, founder of Black-owned electrical contracting firm Detroit Voltage; and Lex Zavala, director of development and operations at the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation. For a national company, “the work that we do is local in nature,” said Carla Zakhem-Hassan, chief marketing officer of JPMorgan Chase, emphasizing the company’s mission to “live up to our newly released purpose statement: ‘make dreams possible for everyone, everywhere, every day.’” “And how we live up to that is locally,” she said. Since its September debut, the Detroit-centric “Make Happen” extension has been deployed throughout the city with out-of-home placements, social and digital pushes, print ads in the Detroit Free Press and Crain’s Detroit Business (an Ad Age corporate sibling) and TV spots during broadcasts of “Good Morning America,” “60 Minutes,” “The Today Show” and more. Also read: Discover taps Jennifer Coolidge to build brand service awareness It is the first local “Impact campaign” to enjoy such a robust rollout. The campaign was led by JPMorgan Chase’s corporate impact marketing and communications team, which was set up roughly one year ago as an entity distinct from the company’s regular advertising arm. The marketing push is rooted in the wider “Make Happen” campaign that JPMorgan Chase debuted nationwide this summer, which was handled separately by Droga5 and features the stories of three U.S. change makers—including Detroit-based Jones, whose story is explored in greater depth in the recent local ads. Brands on the rise A look at up-and-coming brands disrupting their categories Read more here That initial campaign marked the first Impact campaign to run nationally on linear TV, receiving airtime during events such as the Women’s World Cup, NBA Finals and Wimbledon tennis championship. “It’s early days, but the response so far has been incredible,” Zakhem-Hassan said of the campaign, citing not only “significantly” boosted trust and favorability feedback for JPMorgan Chase since its launch but also positive returns for the clients featured in the ads. Kelly Twichel, owner of California-based Access Trax, who was one of three people spotlighted in the national “Make Happen” spots, pointed to the exposure gained from JPMorgan Chase’s ads as the driving factor behind August being the best-ever sales month in her business’s history, according to Zakhem-Hassan. “For us, it’s really important that we highlight this work so we can demonstrate the impact our people are having in the communities we serve,” Zakhem-Hassan continued, noting that the campaign’s timing coincides with both JPMorgan Chase’s 10-year anniversary of investing in Detroit’s economic revival and its 90-year anniversary of providing banking services in the city. “Everything we do is grounded in our purpose and our values,” she said, adding that while “purpose” has been thrown around as a “superficial word” by some brands in the past few years, it’s seen as an essential growth driver for JPMorgan Chase. “You’ll see us always focus on our clients, our customers, our communities.” Watch: Purpose marketing hits and misses Over the past decade, the bank has invested more than $200 million into the recovery of Michigan’s largest city, which has resulted in the creation of thousands of affordable housing units, job training program placements and capital infusions for small businesses, according to JPMorgan Chase’s website. (The city of Detroit declared municipal bankruptcy in July 2013, which was and remains the largest such Chapter 9 filing in American history.) Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, recently discussed the Detroit investment at length in an interview with KC Crain, CEO of Crain Communications (parent company of Ad Age). As for what comes next for this campaign, Zakhem-Hassan said JPMorgan Chase will be “doubling down” looking to dually lean into the company’s reputation as a great place to work for all—including marginalized groups such as military veterans and previously incarcerated individuals, for example, in a bid to “[remove] stigmas from Americans looking for a good job”—while also angling to expand “Make Happen” on a global scale. In the near future, though, JPMorgan Chase plans on continuing the campaign in Washington, D.C., Dallas, Texas and undisclosed cities in Ohio, with “Make Happen” further expanding “to additional U.S. markets where we have a strong business, community and employee presence,” a company representative said. See all of Ad Age’s 40 Under 40 honorees here

JPMorgan Chase spotlights Detroit’s economic comeback in new local marketing push

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