The path to becoming an Olympian is a costly journey, with expenses spanning equipment, travel, and coaching. For this campaign, we financially sponsored 10 Chicago-born athletes on their way to the Winter Olympic Games.
As the project’s Creative Lead, I thought it would be a unique hook to showcase the contrast between being a world-class athlete and a true Chicagoan at heart. These are intense competitors, but deep down they all have a soft spot for the little things that make this city unique. This approach fostered a connection with consumers and portrayed our local Olympians in a new light.
Through it all, we were able to use this platform to solidify our brand’s position as Chicago’s Bank. We differentiated ourselves as a company built for Chicago that actually cares about the people who live here. Creating brand establishing campaigns, that let consumers know what kind of company you are, is a critical step in building trust and an authentic rapport with prospective customers.
Goal
To generate excitement around the local participants competing in the Winter Olympics and establish Wintrust as a brand that give back locally.
Services
Creative Development, Art Direction, Photo Compositing, Freelance Resource Management
Awards
Chicago/Midwest Emmy | Outstanding Achievement for Commercials- Campaign
Working with the United States Olympic Committee, we scheduled out social posts to announce the members of Chicago’s Team and promote when they would be competing. We also created numerous marketing pieces and held a meet-and-greet before the Games. All of this was done to demonstrate that we are a company that supports its city.
All of the athletes were training in different sections of the country so, for the final Chicago’s Team photo, we had to rely heavily on photo compositing. I took a few dozen separate images and edited them together to form the final artwork. We used this asset in ads, on billboards, and we even printed posters for the athletes to sign at our post Games meet-and-greet.
Due to time constraints, we delegated some video work to a local agency called Banner Collective. Despite the videos not being created by us in-house, I closely collaborated with their creative team to ensure these additional assets felt consistent with the rest of our materials. This provided extra content on social media and made the campaign more robust. See a few examples below:
