AdMiration feature: Venmo’s “Explore The Everything That Venmo Can Buy​​”

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we looked at consumer response to Venmo’s “Explore The Everything That Venmo Can Buy​” ad, which promotes the app’s new commerce solutions and debit card and stars White Lotus actors Aimee Lou Wood and Patrick Schwarzenegger.

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

The ad opens to a bird’s eye view of White Lotus’ Aimee Lou Wood walking out of a storefront towards a man with Venmo pulled up on his phone, who ends up being her White Lotus co-star Patrick Schwarzenegger.  

When she sees that he’s using Venmo to pay for his rideshare, she asks, “Wait, I thought Venmo was for paying people?” To which he responds, “Yeah, and for everything else.” “Everything?” she responds. “Everything,” he states. 

A remixed version of Black Sheep’s “The Choice Is Yours” begins to play, with the chorus changed to say, “You can Venmo this, or you can Venmo that” as the pair are shown in a montage of scenes using Venmo to pay for their activities, from purchasing records to frolicking through the grocery store to pay for their food to clothes shopping to drinks on a plane and more — dancing to the beat along the way. 

The two settle into a scene where they are clearly filming while dancing around a cotton candy sky colored room together in white clothes, as the words “Now you can Venmo everything” are narrated and appear on screen. As they return to their set chairs, Aimee pulls up a food order on her phone using Venmo to pay and asks, “Hungry?” 

The ad closes with the words “Get the Venmo Debit Card and get up to 15% cash back” narrated and on-screen as the scene pans out.  

3 facts

• This was a very strong ad from Venmo, landing in the top 20% of US finance ads in potential to drive immediate sales (Sales Impact: 84) and brand equity over the longer term (Brand Impact: 86).

• Viewers found the spot to be highly enjoyable and found it to be more relevant than other finance ads (Enjoyment: 3.9 vs. 3.7 norm), (Relevance: 3.6 vs. 3.4 norm), bringing the story to life in a relatable way.

• The ad does a wonderful job at communicating positive takeaways about the brand and their latest offering. After viewing the ad, audiences felt that Venmo delivers what they expect from a mobile payment service brand (Brand Meets Needs: 4.1 vs. 3.8 norm), that Venmo is different from other mobile payment service brands (Brand Distinctiveness: 3.6 vs. 3.4 norm) and on top of that, the ad makes them feel good about the Venmo brand (Brand Appeal: 3.8 vs. 3.7 norm) — with some sharing: “I liked that the app is easy to connect and use. I like that you can do everything with the app", "I just liked how they were using a tap to pay with their phone. I do that often but with my personal bank card” and “I also liked all of the different things that were being shown as being bought with the Venmo card in the phone wallet."

2 learnings

• Music can set the stage for the emotion you’re trying to evoke in your advertising. In this case, as soon as the remixed “The Choice Is Yours” track begins to play, the dancing commences, emitting a high-energy, playful and humorous vibe for viewers — exactly what the brand stated they were aiming for in this campaign! This can be seen through the higher than average musical appeal compared to other finance ads (Musical Appeal: 4.1 vs. 3.6 norm) as well as in viewers' emotional reaction to the spot, with music being the biggest source of likes in the ad, with 21% mentioning it spontaneously as something they like. 

• Celebrity choice matters. When done right, celebrities can be a great addition to your advertising. In this case, the inclusion of the White Lotus actors may have been instantly recognizable to some, and was certainly a play for a niche audience of fans of the series. While it was a great ad regardless, for those who recognized them, it added another layer of enjoyment to the spot. This is something to consider when selecting a celebrity appearance — to be choiceful in the use and execution of using celebrities so they can work with or without recognition.  

1 reflection

Can you take a song and make it your own? In a way that allows viewers to recognize the track and make it cue your brand and what it offers? It’s one thing for an ad to include a catchy or popular song, but it’s another thing to update a recognizable song to include your brand. 

In this case, Venmo did an excellent job with not only their music choice, but cleverly remixed Black Sheep’s well-known “The Choice is Yours” to include their name in the chorus (“You can Venmo this, You can Venmo That”) — seamlessly aligning with the message they were trying to convey with the ad (that Venmo isn’t just for peer payments) and who the ad as for. What’s more, their play on the song helps drive a high emotional connection with the brand and generates lots of love from viewers (the highest spike in fact)! 

Venmo’s “Venmo Everything” campaign, which features their “Explore The Everything That Venmo Can Buy​​” ad, announces the expansion of its commerce capabilities, introducing even more benefits for customers to use their Venmo balance beyond peer payments, from everyday purchases to earning enhanced rewards in-store and online with the Venmo Debit Mastercard.

Diego Scotti, EVP, General Manager – Consumer Group, shares, “Not only does Venmo deliver best-in-class peer-to-peer payment experiences, but we're transforming from a payments app into a full-service commerce experience for users to spend their balance on everything, in-store and online. Venmo users trust Venmo to move money, so we're making it easier – and more rewarding – to spend and live their lives with an app that moves as fast as they do."

Added features of the debit card includes: 

• Tap-to-Pay on mobile devices

• Automatically add funds and set automatic transfers

• Pay internationally with no international transaction fees

• Pass-through FDIC Insurance

The inclusion of actors Wood and Schwarzenegger adds to the trendy, high-energy campaign promoting these new offerings. 

The campaign will appear across TV during the NBA finals, social media, podcasts and gaming platforms. The effort arrives as the platform’s commerce tools, including Pay with Venmo and the Venmo Debit Card, report double-digit growth.

Consumers really enjoyed this catchy, music fueled and high energy ad from Venmo, landing in the top 20% of US finance ads in potential to drive immediate sales (Sales Impact: 84) and brand equity over the longer term (Brand Impact: 86).

The ad resonated very well with viewers and enjoyed it more (Enjoyment: 3.9 vs. 3.7 norm), finding it to be more relevant than other finance ads (Relevance: 3.6 vs. 3.4 norm) and very easy to understand (Understanding: 4.4 vs. 4.1 norm).

In addition, one area worth noting is the music appeal for the spot — which is very high compared to other finance ads (Musical Appeal: 4.1 vs. 3.6 norm). The music is also the biggest source of likes in the ad, with 21% mentioning it spontaneously as something they like, with some sharing: "The music had a funky groove. It was entertaining and told a story", “I liked the background music - attention grabbing and catchy. It will be in my head today”  and "I thought the music/jingle was catchy."

On top of that, people could easily realize the ad was for Venmo and the music played a key part in that, with 18% spontaneously talking about music as the main way they recognized the brand — a clever play from Venmo, who added their name directly into the lyrics! 

Viewers also shared that they learned something new about Venmo after watching (New Information: 3.9 vs. 3.3 norm) — much higher than the typical finance ad! This is excellent for the brand since the goal of the ad was to make people realize they could use them to pay for more things and the higher-than-average score underlines they were successful in communicating this.

This news helped audiences feel that Venmo delivers what they expect from a mobile payment service brand (Brand Meets Needs: 4.1 vs. 3.8 norm), therefore making them find Venmo more appealing (Brand Appeal: 3.8 vs. 3.7 norm) and that Venmo is different from other mobile payment service brands (Brand Distinctiveness: 3.6 vs. 3.4 norm). 

Digging deeper into how viewers felt about the ad, overall the spot received a lot of like and love reactions throughout the ad (Love: 22% vs. 17% norm, Like: 55% vs. 48% norm). 

The ad begins predominantly with like reactions, followed by the biggest spike of like as soon as Schwarzenegger explains that Venmo is for paying people and for paying for “everything else” and the Wood says “Everything?” The biggest spike of love occurs right after the end of the first line of the song “You can Venmo this, or you can Venmo that.”  The rest of the ad is a mix of like, love and laughter as the characters dance and buy things, paying for them with Venmo. The spot ends on a high with love as the 15% cashback is mentioned, a nice reminder that strong emotions can be created both from the narrative and functional messages. 

Overall, Venmo delivered an informative message about their new commerce features while also entertaining viewers (especially White Lotus fans!) with a remixed tune viewers couldn’t help but vibe with.  

Here’s what some people had to say about the ad:

• "I liked the people and the music. I liked that the app is easy to connect and use . I like that you can do everything with the app."

• "The different people, diversity using venmo, the music."

• "I like the music, message, different places to use venmo, and the main actors."

• "I liked the song, it was very ‘catchy.’ I also liked all of the different things that were being shown as being bought with the Venmo card in the phone wallet."

• "I just liked how they were using a tap to pay with their phone. I do that often but with my personal bank card. I liked the vibe of the ad in general."

• "What I liked was the unique song with lyrics that match the brand. The visual colors as well were great."

• "The music was catching. Brightly lit scenes, colorful actors' clothing. Young vibe."

What a fun, high-energy and catchy spot from Venmo that not only entertains, but lets viewers know all the new capabilities they have to offer! What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ad on LinkedIn.

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