FactSet, a global financial digital platform and enterprise solutions provider, has partnered with Chicago-based creative agency VSA Partners to unveil a second round of spots in its “Not Just the Facts” campaign. The campaign originally launched in April this year with impressive results.
The campaign was built on a core strategic insight: While quality data is critical for financial professionals, facts in isolation provide little value. FactSet’s personalization, data connectivity, open and flexible technology, and dedicated service and support provide the context necessary for the investment community to turn facts into valuable insights—and make the most of them.
The new creative picks up where the previous left off. This time it focuses on a particularly boorish office worker, drolly played by character actor Wyndham Maxwell, who ticks off an encyclopedic list of facts and non sequiturs during business meetings and in an elevator to the bemusement of his colleagues.
The tongue-in-cheek campaign, which plays more like a perfect-pitch comedy series than a typical B2B commercial effort, is unlike anything else in the financial services industry—both in its use of humor and in its humanistic approach. Starting this week, FactSet will roll out 16 unique spots—a combination of :30s, :15s, :06s and nine “shorts”—across multiple channels including digital, streaming and CTV.
“We are thrilled with the success of our bold ‘Not Just the Facts’ campaign, which emphasizes what sets the FactSet brand apart: not just the breadth and depth of our data offering, but the intelligent solutions and advanced technology that contextualize it for global finance professionals,” said Jenifer Brooks, Chief Marketing Officer at FactSet. “We’re proud of how the campaign’s direct and relatable tone, which challenges industry norms, has resonated with audiences. As we look toward this next phase of the campaign, we will continue to bring fresh perspectives and empathetic storytelling to demonstrate the value of our offerings.”
The first round of the “Not Just the Facts” campaign earlier this year achieved outstanding results, resonating deeply and driving significant engagement. The spots achieved 193 million impressions with a 98% increase in click-through rates and a 36% rise in video view-through rates across the campaign platform.
“Humor is an incredible way to connect with audiences—and the results we saw in round one of the campaign confirm it,” said Kim Mickenberg, Associate Partner and Executive Creative Director at VSA. “In ‘Not Just the Facts,’ we’ve built a platform that lets us entertain and engage our audiences while telling a really clear, compelling story about what makes FactSet so different. We’re so proud of the work and all the collaboration that went into it.”
Los Angeles–based Docter Twins Matthew and Jason Docter directed the original campaign and this new work through their production company, Thinking Machine. The identical twin brothers grew up in the Midwest and were heavily influenced by classic comedy directors like the Coen brothers and John Hughes. Their work is known for a subtle sensibility that balances smart performance and cinematic style with a witty flair for storytelling.
“It’s tough to choose a favorite line when working with the amazing team at VSA,” said the Docter Twins. “Two of our favorites from this go-round are “‘Trees can recognize their siblings’ and ‘Some dinosaurs had really tiny arms…and could probably only bench press like 400 lbs.’
“VSA’s Kim [Mickenberg], Megan [Schulist, creative director], and Bryan [Haney, motion producer] are never short on ideas.
“And with a client like [global head of brand] Christina Sradj and others at FactSet willing to let us riff, the actors find a playful space and never let up. They were best friends by the end of the shoot, which sums up the fun we all had working together.”
FactSet (NYSE: FDS) helps the financial community to see more, think bigger, and work better. Our digital platform and enterprise solutions deliver financial data, analytics, and open technology to nearly 8,000 global clients, including over 206,000 individual users. Clients across the buy side and sell side as well as wealth managers, private equity firms, and corporations achieve more every day with our comprehensive and connected content, flexible next-generation workflow solutions, and client-centric specialized support. As a member of the S&P 500, we are committed to sustainable growth and have been recognized as one of the Best Places to Work in 2023 by Glassdoor as a Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award winner. Learn more and follow us on X and LinkedIn.
VSA’s purpose is to design for a better human experience. As a strategy and creative agency, we blend consumer insights and data with human-centered design to activate meaningful, motivating and measurable experiences in an increasingly noisy world. With offices in Chicago and New York, VSA offers a full range of integrated capabilities—branding, advertising, data science and technology—all under one roof. VSA is also a proud member of Meet The People, an international family of unified and independent agencies. For more than 40 years, we have delivered solutions for business and creative leaders at some of the world’s most respected brands and forward-thinking organizations, including Google, Nike and IBM.
Thinking Machine is a Los Angeles–based commercial production company specializing in creative storytelling.
VSA’s CEO Anne-Marie Rosser was recently interviewed by AdForum's India Fizer to discuss how she believes the advertising industry can create more gender parity.
From the importance of cultivating a network early in your career to combating ageism, check out Anne-Marie’s thoughts on fostering better workplaces for women below, or view the original article.
There are so many simple but meaningful things that we can do. For starters, I try to always say yes to young women who reach out to me asking to learn more about the industry. It’s easy to do and I always want to encourage young women who put themselves out there.
I also tell women early on to build their network and to nurture it. It’s something I didn’t know starting out, and it’s imperative. Calling women into group conversations is really important, particularly in a hybrid workforce. Fostering a safe space where they can be heard and have room to contribute builds confidence.
And finally, from what I’ve seen, women in general tend to have more impostor syndrome. So celebrating successes, calling out women’s achievements and encouraging women to advocate for their place are all key leadership contributions to helping younger women succeed.
This is a broader societal issue, but I think one simple way is to demystify the topic of age with women. I don’t try to hide my age, and I comfortably tell people my age—even if I understand that this may cause discomfort. But we have a long way to go in this regard. There is still a heavy bias that women of a certain age have nothing to contribute and the best way to prove this wrong is to be active and to stay in the workforce in leadership positions as long as men do.
One of the best aspects of being involved in marketing is that it allows you to peek behind the scenes of multiple industries and companies without having to work in them. I’ve been able to see firsthand the company cultures in multiple finance firms, the tech sector, CPG and retail. Within those, you sometimes see microcosms of cultures that appear to more consistently support women and those that don’t.
I was lucky enough to get to have a seat at the table with Fortune 100 CEOs from when I was relatively young. This exposure gave me the confidence to demand a seat at the table in my own company throughout my career. It’s also allowed me to accept that I don’t need to model my leadership style based on my male colleagues—I can put forth my own leadership style, driven by empathy, humor and accountability.
There is still a heavy bias that women of a certain age have nothing to contribute. The best way to prove this wrong is to be active and to stay in the workforce in leadership positions as long as men do.”
The question positions women as “digital pioneers,” and I just think this is inherently powerful in and of itself. Having young women who are fluent in technology from the jump feels like an important change because it’s so integral to our world now. I see young women already changing the workforce by better understanding their value, more clearly competing for work or mindshare within an agency, and advocating for their own growth and compensation. It’s exciting!
VSA Associate Partner and Executive Director of Production Tarek El-Mofty was recently interviewed by AdForum. During the interview, Tarek discussed his views on the future of production—particularly, how to create authentic and relevant campaigns and user experiences.
Tarek and author India Fizer cover the importance of listening tools in campaign creation and how they serve as real-time focus groups. They also discuss how VSA approaches cross-cultural campaigns by emphasizing intersectionality during audience research and how that ladders down to different audience needs.
Tarek also shares his thoughts on how augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR) can be used to improve user experiences, and how new technologies might deepen the impact of these interactions:
”With the emergence of Apple Vision Pro and the possibilities of 3D cameras and video, we’re about to see a whole new evolution of these mediums. Apple Vision Pro seamlessly integrates AR/VR for a truly blended reality. This technology can create immersive 3D videos with captured depth perception as well as allow for object recognition and tracking. Overall, it will create better virtual environments and even more practical applications.”
VSA’s Jessica Sochol was recently interviewed by AdForum to give insights on the expansion of retail media. During the interview, she discusses the reasons and trends behind the boom of retail media, how retail brands can adapt and use new technologies to improve customer experience, and what that means for brick and mortar locations.
Jessica points to three trends that have propelled the growth of retail media: the rise of retail content creation, the explosion of the digital big-box retailer, and the rise of social media marketing.
She also shares how brands can use personalization to supercharge their CX:
”Brands need to get their data in order, ensuring every customer interaction treats the customer like you’ve met before. That means remembering previous orders, recommending related, relevant products, and offering unique customer service and offers that recognize the existing relationship. As retailers expand their media arms, they have access to more data—especially around the topics and issues each customer cares about—and should be ready to use that information to show up in a way that says, ‘We see you, and we appreciate you.’”
Check out the full article, which includes additional insights about designing retail experiences for Gen Z and Gen A, as well as how to create a powerful physical-digital connection between customer experiences.
VSA Chief Creative Officer Curt Schreiber was recently a guest on Greg Kihlström’s podcast, “The Agile Brand.” In this episode, Curt and Greg explore the benefits of stakeholder design and how organizations can implement it into their own business practices.
Stakeholder design emphasizes the importance of optimizing outcomes for multiple stakeholders, which could be shareholders, employees, customers or even outside groups, like nonprofits or social justice organizations. Curt has previously worked with Jon Iwata and the Yale Program on Stakeholder Innovation and Management on “The New Brief,” which gathered 60 business leaders, designers and strategic thinkers to develop new ideas and processes for stakeholder design.
Curt outlines why stakeholder design has become critical to success and innovation. First, CEOs today face ever-increasing pressure to meet the needs of multiple groups but often feel underprepared to lead in this landscape. Stakeholder design can help manage optimal outcomes for these sometimes opposing demands, and support CEOs as they respond to these new expectations.
It also yields more creative solutions that drive growth. Stakeholder design naturally involves a greater set of constraints, which Curt explains are essential for encouraging outside-the-box design thinking. Its practice involves breaking down siloed departments and cross-collaboration that can spark innovative thinking.
Listen to the full podcast to hear more from Curt about how businesses can implement stakeholder design, the value of horizontal thinking over vertical thinking and why stakeholder design can help you bring value to more people than ever before.
VSA Chief Growth Officer Ariadna Navarro recently appeared on an episode of “CMO Convo,” hosted by Will Whitham, to discuss how chief marketing officers (CMOs) can overcome today’s biggest challenges—including how to get buy-in from their fellow executives on the importance of brand as a business asset.
With the increased ability to measure and trace results, CMOs today are often held to hard metrics and KPIs that need to be realized immediately. But, paradoxically, brands can sometimes take years to build, and short-term tactics may compromise long-term success.
If a CMO doesn’t already have a mutual understanding with other business leaders about the critical role brand plays, they are going to have an uphill battle. Still, they can aid their cause by showing how brand can be used as the filter through which all decisions are made, as well as demonstrating how brand can help other executives meet their own KPIs.
Check out the full podcast to hear more about how CMOs can navigate the new marketing and business landscape, including how to build strategic partnerships among other executives and teams for shared success, why emotion is so critical in marketing and how to measure it, and Ari’s three golden rules for CMO success.
Curt Schreiber was recently interviewed on the podcast “Bonanza Growth: Innovation, Strategy and UX for SaaS,” hosted by Behrad Mirafshar.
Behrad and Curt dove deep on how to transition from a graphic designer to creative director, how Curt has seen brands shift in response to emerging technologies, the complexity of stakeholder design and how to build a strong brand experience.
The Bonanza Growth podcast features hands-on knowledge from experts on UX design, design thinking and product innovation.
