Banking app Chime was founded to make banking and credit building easier for everyday people who tend to be “overlooked by the traditional banking system,” according to CMO Vineet Mehra. Amplifying the Chime brand relies on reaching those people, Mehra told Marketing Brew.
And what’s something many everyday people enjoy more than anything else?
“Sports,” Mehra said. “It’s where a lot of cultural trends start.”
For the past several years, Chime’s sport of choice has been basketball, one of the most zeitgeisty in the US. In 2020, the banking brand signed on as a jersey-patch sponsor of the Dallas Mavericks the same season the Mavs finished first in the Southwest division. Last year, the team made it all the way to the NBA Finals, further boosting brand awareness for Chime, according to Mehra.
Since then, Chime has doubled down on the Mavs. In May, it re-signed its sponsorship deal for about $33 million for an additional three years, and it also partnered with rookie Cooper Flagg. To truly generate awareness, though, Chime is going after more than even the sacred real estate of the jersey patch and the latest No. 1 draft pick. That’s why the brand’s approach to its sponsorships hinges on community initiatives, as well as a content strategy that’s all about “serializing social media” with athletes, Mehra said.
Get involved
One attribute that initially stood out to the Chime team about the Mavs was the organization’s dedication to the Dallas-Fort Worth community, Mehra said. “They really try to give back,” he said.
When Chime signed on to work with the team, it was with the intention to be a part of those efforts, he told us.
Since the collaboration began, Chime has worked with the Mavericks and other partners to build basketball courts in the area, Mehra said, and the organizations have also collaborated on financial literacy and entrepreneurship education programs for students in North Texas. Chime also wove the Mavs into its Chime Scholars Foundation, which pledges 1% of the company’s equity to higher education scholarships, by awarding five scholarships each time the team played a game in the 2024 Finals.
That Finals run was a significant driver of awareness, credibility, and trust for the Chime brand, according to Mehra. In the past three years, Chime has “almost doubled” brand awareness, and it has seen growth in membership particularly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, he said.
While community programs have given Chime an avenue to connect with potential users in places they spend time in the real world, like courts and schools, many people spend at least as much time online as they do in their communities.
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Chime aims to show up there in a big way as well, including through its Ball on a Budget series, which shows viewers how to replicate NBA and WNBA tunnel fits by thrifting. The series has so far featured players including Sacramento Kings (and former Mavs) center JaVale McGee, New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, Chicago Sky center Kamilla Cardoso, and Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale.
“This is where we started to realize and really unlock sports in fashion and culture and some of those areas,” Mehra said.
Serial box
Ball on a Budget, which has so far had two seasons, represents Chime’s approach to creating serialized social content, sometimes with athletes.
“You want to turn your social channels into almost like a streaming platform,” Mehra said. “Ball on a Budget is a series, so you know that every Wednesday that show is on, kind of like you know White Lotus is on every Sunday. I think the best brands think of themselves as publishers and editors. You’re constantly putting out stories in the world, and you’re almost serializing the way you think about social.”
One of Chime’s first projects with Flagg, who Mehra says is the first athlete to serve as an ambassador for the brand on a mulit-year basis, was part of a social series called Mama, I Made It, where celebrities like athletes and singers talk finance with their moms. Mehra said the series is a particularly good fit for Flagg, who has often spoken about his mom, Kelly Bowman Flagg, a former college basketball player.
“It’s a really powerful storytelling partnership for us,” Mehra said. “Cooper is the real deal, both from a basketball standpoint, but also from a humanity standpoint and a story of progress.”
Chime’s partnership with Flagg kicked off less than two months ago, but already, Mehra said he plans to do much more storytelling with the rookie, including potentially involving him with Chime’s philanthropic efforts. Whatever shape the partnership takes next, Mehra said Flagg and his team will have plenty of input.
“Gone are the days of athletes just doing what a brand says,” Mehra told us. “I don’t think that's authentic…It’s that co-creation which I think drives the authenticity, that creates stories that people actually believe and want to listen to. It’s a really big part of how we think about all of our partnerships.”