Wells Fargo – Banking On Our Schools

The Challenge: Develop a customer acquisition and product sales promotion campaign that would generate sales while demonstrating Wells Fargo’s longstanding commitment to its local communities.

The Approach: With thousands of schools and school districts throughout the nation facing severe program cutbacks or eliminations, LA ads created a campaign in which Wells Fargo would contribute up to $40 per customer to their local school district based on the number financial products that the customer signed up for.

This was a “win-win-win” for the customers, the community and Wells Fargo. Because this program directly benefited their local communities, our client’s staff could feel a sense of pride in their efforts while customers could feel good about their choice to bank with Wells Fargo. A fully-integrated marketing program was initiated ranging from internal communications with Wells Fargo team members along with communication to school districts, public/media relations activities, online, in-branch merchandising and general marketing advertising efforts on TV, radio, out-of-home and print.

The Change: The “Team Up For Schools” program was an immediate success, with numerous news stories on television, radio and newspapers (many showing the marketing materials). In the program’s first year, Wells Fargo donated more than $3.4 million to schools and districts in the bank’s 23 regional banking states. This program is still ongoing.