Robinhood's CMO on the crop of new investors—and the GameStop frenzy

Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, check us out on Spotify and hear us on Stitcher. This is our RSS feed. Tell a friend! Earlier this year, Robinhood, the trading app, faced public backlash when it halted trading of GameStop following the stock’s Reddit-fueled rise. Yet while the seven-year-old investment company faced the challenge of explaining its position to customers, it also saw the benefit of an awareness lift. “From a marketing perspective, our brand awareness was up significantly—people joined the platform and they’re still with the platform today,” says Christina Smedley, chief marketing officer, on the latest episode of the “Marketer’s Brief” podcast. “The macro point is finance is culturally relevant in a way that it hasn’t been before.” This week, the brand is releasing a new ad campaign, “We Are All Investors,” that continues a push that first debuted during the Super Bowl. Smedley discusses how the new work—which was created with MediaMonks—highlights real customers telling their diverse stories. “We’re celebrating the stories of five real Robinhood customers—they represent this next generation of investors,” says Smedley. “This idea of a typical investor image is really outdated. Investors today are younger, they’re more diverse than ever before.” The new campaign will include customers such as a small business owner, a law school graduate and an army veteran. Robinhood is also exploring new marketing channels such as TikTok and teaming up with financial influencers to attract new customers. “We work a lot with financial influencers—it’s sort of a new thing but it’s really interesting to see how they’re growing,” Smedley says.

Robinhood's CMO on the crop of new investors—and the GameStop frenzy

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