Sunday’s game will have another newcomer. Greenlight, the banking app and debit card for kids, will debut a 30-second spot in the Super Bowl featuring Ty Burrell of “Modern Family” fame.

It’s a big investment for the five-year-old fintech brand, which has been boosting its marketing investment in recent years as it strives to grow awareness amid competition from newer brands such as Copper Banking and financial services behemoth Chase. Each marketer is taking its own approach to marketing, with Greenlight making the most visible move, putting its brand in the spotlight on advertising's biggest night.

“The goal of the Super Bowl and the surrounding campaign is to take advantage of the unique reach of parents and kids watching the Super Bowl together,” said Rachel Hamilton, Greenlight’s chief marketing officer. “Our parent is the customer, and our marketing is all about reaching the parent, but these sports moments bring [more access.]”

While Greenlight invested in some TV marketing over the summer and often works with influencers, the new campaign is its first work with a celebrity. In the commercial, Burrell makes a series of funny yet ill-advised purchases—he buys a fancy yacht, even though he gets seasick, purchases a suit of armor and a 12-handed massage chair, and also invests in a hot air balloon emblazoned with his face, before realizing he’s broke. At the end of the ad, an observing father tells his kids, “And that’s why mom and I use Greenlight to teach you about money.”

Category growth

Marketing for the kids banking app category is growing up. Greenlight’s foray into the Super Bowl with a 30-second commercial, which carries a price tag near $7 million, illustrates the massive growth of child-focused fintech brands. Like Greenlight, Copper Banking, an app that caters to teens looking to save and improve their financial literacy, is also in expansion mode. Traditional lenders are also exploring the category—Chase Bank recently introduced an app for its youngest customers, and tapped Greenlight to help power the effort.

Such brands incorporate parent and child involvement—typically, for younger kids, the parent has control and can direct funds to the child’s account as an allowance, for reoccurring chores like cleaning their room, for example. Apps for older kids can be used in a more traditional banking way for earnings they receive from a job, for instance. Along with the app, which includes education around finance, the child customer gets a debit card they can use for in-person or e-commerce purchases. Some brands charge a monthly fee—Greenlight’s services start at $4.99 a month per family—while others solely make money on debit card transactions.

“We’re trying to help parents raise financially smart kids and help the kids learn to spend wisely and save,” said Tim Sheehan, CEO of Greenlight, noting that his young customers learn how to build wealth over time and understand credit. As they get older, they have the opportunity to research stocks and make investments.

Creating financial independence

In some ways, kids today are much more independent than previous generations—they can build worlds on Roblox and blast videos to millions on TikTok. But there’s white space in finance, according to Adam Harris, chief marketing officer at Copper.

“The one area that our society has not empowered these kids is with money,” said Harris, a former executive at PayPal. “Kids today can launch brands, they can be selling products, they can create political change, but when it comes to money, it’s like, ‘Sorry, you have to deal in cash,’ which is so foreign. If you go shopping with kids they see a plastic card and you receive goods—they don’t understand that’s money and it’s being deducted.”

Part of the reason for the growing popularity of kids banking apps can be traced back to the 2008 recession, which many adults who have kids today struggled through, according to Chanelle Bessette, a banking specialist at Nerdwallet. Such parents want to ensure their children do not make similar financial mistakes and are educating them at an early age. Advances in technology, and the proliferation of smartphones amongst adolescents, have helped pave the way for brands like Greenlight and Copper. In addition, brands can cement loyal relationships early on by targeting young customers.

“A lot these apps, they offer the benefit of teaching kids about money, but they also have a way of bringing in users at an early age,” said Bessette, noting that many consumers stick with the banks they used in childhood. “Being able to use a bank or app that you’re familiar with, that you have a longstanding customer relationship with—that’s a win for the bank.”

Greenlight worked with creative agency Haymaker on its Super Bowl spot, which will air in the fourth quarter.

“It’s introducing people to Greenlight with a simple, clear and entertaining piece of communication,” said Jay Kamath, co-founder and chief creative officer at Haymaker. “It’s the Super Bowl, so you want it to be entertaining, [especially since] the topic of finance can be intimidating to a lot of people.”

Last year, Greenlight spent around $20 million in total on media, according to MediaRadar, which tracks advertising spend. Sheehan said the company is spending more on marketing in 2022. The Super Bowl commercial is part of a larger campaign including video vignettes and digital extensions that also feature Burrell, as well as a TikTok challenge.

“We have the spot, but the moment unlocks a lot of opportunity,” said Greenlight's Hamilton. “This is an opportunity for us to build momentum more broadly.”

A focus on education

Seattle-based Copper, which launched last February, is not advertising in the Super Bowl this year, but the brand is spending more on marketing than last year, according to Harris. The company currently counts over 550,000 users. The brand has been focusing on educating its younger teenage users; Copper runs a content series called “Money Moves” that breaks down complex financial topics around money management for kids. For users who are 15 years and older, Copper offers content around budgeting and spending wisely.

For the most part, digital advertising channels and platforms—including teen-heavy TikTok and Google—have yielded good results, Harris said, noting that Copper also works with content creators. The company has also had success with user-generated content, which includes parental consent.

“Influencer as a word dumbs down the consumer,” said Harris. “In talking to our teens, we want to position our product in a way that understands who they are, and to say they’re easily influenced does them a disservice.” He calls such marketing “the new word-of-mouth” that includes like-minded individuals speaking to Copper’s teen customers in a “non-salesy” way.

In addition to digital marketing, Copper will also lean into other advertising methods including radio, out-of-home and OTT.

“Digital can be foundational but it only goes so far,” said Harris. “Especially for a product like this around building trust with parents and teens—you need to be visible in other areas.”

Chase’s new kids-focused banking account carries no monthly fees and offers parents and kids three key features of earn, spend and save. The product, which Greenlight helped Chase put together in a collaboration that is not exclusive to the large bank, launched in October of 2020. To market the offering, which is exclusively for Chase members, the bank has been emailing current customers.

“Chase First Banking helps parents teach teens and kids about money by giving parents the control they want and kids the freedom they need to learn,” read an email sent to Chase customers today.

Marketing guardrails

Experts expect more traditional lenders to boost their own child-focused offerings as the category heats up. Nerdwallet’s Bessette said more banks might team up with fintech players and use their technology so they don’t have to “reinvent the wheel.”

However, marketers need to be careful of who they are targeting when they run their ads, she added.

“Financial literacy as a whole is becoming more top-of-mind when it comes to banking, but the important thing is this marketing isn’t geared toward kids as much as their parents,” she said. “As consumers, kids have more guardrails in place to protect them,” Bessette added. “It’s a marketing challenge for these apps to make sure they are marketing not only to kids, but to parents and making sure parents feel comfortable with the product.”

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