As Creative Director at Varo, I guide and shape the brand across a myriad of touch points, assets, and campaigns. As a mobile-first banking app that’s also a real FDIC-insured bank, Varo holds a unique place in the financial space, aimed at an audience of younger Americans who aren’t looking for any old bank—they’re looking for a way to live better with money.
In my time at Varo, I’ve overseen all of the creative work that’s gone out the door from TV spots and website to lifecycle campaigns to thousands of performance marketing assets, simultaneously building an enduring new banking brand while driving customer acquisition. The result is a bank that “doesn’t feel like a bank”, designed to create an empathetic connection with customers to last a lifetime.
Here are a handful of some of my favorite projects and pieces from my time at Varo.
“We Got You” campaign
At Varo, we were running a lot of performance marketing on a few key channels, but it lacked strategy, consistent product messaging, and visual identity. In anticipation of expanding our reach, increasing spend, and advertising on more platforms, we decided to seize the opportunity to look at how our creative could be more cohesive across all of our channels. We created “We Got You” to serve as a consistent end line to pay off the benefits of all of our products and offerings, reinforcing that Varo Bank is here to help regular, hard-working Americans take control of their financial future. Need a bank that actually helps you make progress with your money? We got you.
Creative team: Ima Djie, DarrenTang, Brendan Irving (copy), Mason Field, Minhee Lee, Jace Goodwin (art direction), Alvin Concepcion (motion design & editing)
“We Got You” extended to organic social as well, where we reinforced the message with posts, including a video that was later run as paid media.
Varo Photo Library Brand Photography
Working with two of Varo’s art directors, I helped expand our photo library to ensure we had high quality, own-able images for use across our numerous marketing and advertising efforts. In my time at Varo, we doubled our photo library’s size, and ensuring we had sufficient portraiture, payment moments, and positive interactions with our product, captured in a way that’s both authentic yet elevated. Considerable attention to detail was paid to casting, styling, art direction, props, lighting, and retouching to ensure alignment with our brand color palette and brand principles of confidence, realness, and fun.
Art Directors: Mason Field & Jace Goodwin | Producer: Namrata Abhyankar | Photography: Mark Clennon
Additional Creative
Varo Wrapped
In the spirit of Spotify’s annual “Unwrapped”, we made this video to celebrate all of our customers’ wins in 2023. This video was shared with all of our customers through email and our social channels, as well as aired during the Varo Holiday Party.
Creative team: Jace Goodwin (art direction), Darren Tang (copy), Alvin Concepcion (motion design)
Varo to Anyone Launch Video
Varo to Anyone is Varo’s peer-to-peer payment product, allowing customers to send money to literally anyone at any bank. All the recipient needs is a debit card issued by a U.S. bank. We created this video using footage from a prior photoshoot to celebrate the new product, which was used across social channels and lifecycle comms as well as run as paid advertising on Instagram and Facebook.
Creative team: Mason Field (art direction), Ima Djie (copy), Alvin Concepcion (motion design)