How financial brands are changing their media approaches as they focus on AI

Financial services brands aren’t known for being the most innovative marketers, but that may soon change as multiple brands take a fresh look at their media strategies while prioritizing AI. In doing so, several are considering agency changes or have already made them. Pacific Life and USAA are among the brands with ongoing media agency reviews, while other marketers have recently concluded reviews, including Northwestern Mutual, which moved from Horizon Next to PMG last summer, and Principal Financial Group, which in November consolidated its media account with iProspect, part of Dentsu, which also handles its creative. Prometheus, a unit within OMG, was the incumbent on the account. Thrivent, a financial service organization primarily serving the Christian community, earlier this year moved its media account from Novus to Stagwell-owned Assembly. The high number of reviews is “pretty unusual,” said Ken Robinson, co-founder of search consultancy Ark Advisors, who has managed four media reviews for financial brands within the past several months. “It might possibly be the beginning of an awakening.” Also read: Geico is pausing its creative agency search Financial brand media teams have yet to fully utilize emerging technologies and advancements in AI, said Lou Paskalis, founder and CEO of martech and adtech consultancy AJL Advisory and former senior VP of customer engagement and media investment at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. This has often resulted in creative being made in a vacuum, disconnected from relevant insights hidden in consumer data. The category has traditionally spent significantly on linear TV as it caters to older clients. But financial brands are starting to realize that they need to shake things up if they’re going to connect with their next generation of consumers, Robinson said. The category spent $6.9 billion, or 24% of its total ad spend, on linear TV in 2024, according to Ad Age Datacenter’s analysis of data from MediaRadar. Categories including retail and apparel spent 10.7% and 8.5%, respectively, on the channel during the same period. Financial services was outspent by some of the largest spenders on linear, such as pharmaceuticals and government organizations, which allocated 65.5% and 51.1% of their budgets to linear, respectively. “They’re recognizing that the agency they hired 10, 20, or 30 years ago was great for their business at the time but maybe has, if not held back the client, hasn’t kept up with client aspirations,” Robinson said. As financial brands venture onto digital channels to reach younger clients, they’re prioritizing AI capabilities that can sift through hordes of data to pull consumer insights and create messaging relevant to different demographics. Why financial brands are prioritizing AI Financial brands have begun tweaking their media strategies to drive cost efficiency as they bid on inventory in relatively uncharted digital channels, Paskalis said. As they do, they’re relying on AI to create and deliver relevant messaging to the right people in the right places. “They’re now moving at the speed and scale of programmatic facilitated by AI,” he said. “The only way they can fully realize whether or not this is an impression they want to bid on … is through using AI.” Programmatic ads have always used machine learning to help targeting, but advancements in generative AI and large language models have improved brands’ ability to analyze web content and drive better results. AI can scrutinize text, images and videos on a webpage to interpret the reason why a consumer may be there and inform the final ad served. Recently, brands have even begun to develop custom AI algorithms to multiply how effective the tech is at identifying target audiences and higher-quality ad inventory. USAA currently has an RFP out for an agency to oversee creative and content, social media and media. It is prioritizing technology and innovation, said Charity Webb, head of marketing enablement at USAA. “If you look at what is in this space right now from a generative AI perspective, all the things that we dreamed of before are now possible,” she said. “We’re making sure we’re aligning ourselves with partners that are thinking innovatively about how we should be leveraging that.” In particular, the insurance brand, which caters to military members, veterans and their families, is looking to use generative AI to go to market quicker as it sets up campaigns on digital platforms. “Trafficking is really complicated in the digital space,” Webb said. “You have to go execute across multiple different types of platforms that have different structures in campaign setups. So, how can we leverage generative AI to streamline that process … that would be one unique use case that is interesting to us.” The brand’s media account currently sits with Publicis. AI-facilitated media buying isn’t uniquely interesting to financial brands, but it does pose a unique challenge for the highly regulated category. In particular, financial brands are beholden to fair lending laws that make it illegal to withhold offers, especially related to credit and lending, from protected classes of citizens. Should automation uniquely serve certain ads containing offers to high-earning consumers it deems more profitable, it could put brands in hot water with the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. While that risk remains today, financial brands are increasingly concerned about the rate at which they’ve fallen behind when it comes to AI adoption, Paskalis said. “I need to overcome these challenges and face these hurdles, because if I don’t, my competitor may eat my lunch,” he said. “Fear is always a big motivator for any marketing activity and we’ve gone from the fear of fucking up to the fear of falling behind.” Financial brands are also increasingly interested in having their creative and media teams work closer together to ensure the former has access to the data and insights of the latter. Principal prioritized synergy between both teams, especially given regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation guidelines in the U.K., which generally restrict how much client data can be collected. “What’s been really beneficial is the speed at which we can get insights about the consumer with a broad data set,” said Liz Rutgersson, CEO of iProspect North America. “It certainly helps speed up the process of getting from insight to decision on creative and media placement.” Exploring new platforms Principal also hired iProspect because the agency knows how to measure the performance of digital platforms and their AI tools, which the brand found to be an essential skill as it allocates its budget to new channels, she said. “In order to get performance from the platform partners that we have, I firmly believe you have to know the platform better than the business that’s running it themselves,” Rutgersson said. “We’re challenging them too … we’re really demanding to know much more detail about how decisions are getting made, and this is specifically about allocation of budget to certain media channels.” Since consolidating with Dentsu, Principal has identified a need to increase investments in audio and podcast ads given the high levels of attention in that channel. It’s also kept its focus on sports, but has tweaked its approach, focusing on NIL deals alongside its sponsorship of teams, especially in women’s sports. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Principal (@principal) “Now we want to put this media out there in a way that captures attention where I’m not fighting in this sea of sameness that is the financial services industry,” said Beth Wood, executive VP and CMO at Principal. “So we’re asking [iProspect] to help us break through and also help us think about contextual advertising.” Thrivent in March announced a brand refresh and an accompanying campaign following the hiring of Assembly. As it launched the campaign, it also announced an increase in its marketing investment to $50 million this year compared to $32 million last year. Those dollars are being redistributed into digital channels. Last year, the brand allocated around half of its $32 million to linear TV. This year, it will only spend a quarter of its marketing investment on the channel, with another 25% going to connected TV, 20% to social and 6% to podcasting. Only 10% of last year’s budget went to social and less than 1% went to podcasting, said Bridget Lynn, executive VP and managing partner at Assembly. The brand is also piloting an influencer program that will leverage about a dozen influencers discussing financial planning. “We want to grow in younger, diverse audiences,” said Lana Slygh, VP of brand and integrated marketing at Thrivent. She noted the brand has an older client base that predominantly lives in the Midwest. ”We want to make sure we have digital platforms and experiences that are ready to catch that demand.” As it explores new audiences on underutilized channels, Thrivent is leaning on AI tools such as Meta’s Advantage+, an automated ad product that specializes in driving sales and other outcomes from campaigns. Thrivent is using it for creative development, audience targeting and programmatic media buying. Through Viant, an AI programmatic ad platform, it’s running a CTV ad with a dynamic ticker that tracks the score of the sports game it’s running during, which will display in a black bar beneath the ad. The ad complements its “splashier CTV activations,” Lynn said. Looking forward, media experts expect consumers to see the category show up on digital platforms with personalized messaging as it gradually dials down linear TV, but maintains its strong sports presence. “You’re going to see a wider array of messaging and less reliance on traditional channels,” Paskalis said. “You’ll still see financial services in the big tentpole events and sports but you’ll mostly see more tailoring.” Ad Age’s Data-Driven Marketing Playbook event is coming up

How financial brands are changing their media approaches as they focus on AI

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