A man looks up at a circle above his head with a speech bubble overlaid. The text in the bubble says "Our thoughts on... The FCA's new Dumb Money cinema ad campaign."

A Lesson In Opportunistic Marketing from The FCA

/ Advertising, Marketing 101 / By

The Financial Conduct Authority’s ‘InvestSmart’ campaign has grabbed the spotlight this week with a cleverly placed promotion in UK cinemas before showings of the new movie, Dumb Money. There is a lot we learn from this shrewd marketing move.

The financial conduct authority (FCA) is trying to reach less experienced investors with their InvestSmart campaign. The campaign was launched in 2021 after a survey of theirs revealed that 76% of under 40’s who’d invested in high-risk products (such as cryptocurrency and forex) said they were driven by competition with friends, family, and acquaintances as well as their own past investments. The UK regulator said they wanted to reach ‘those tempted by high-risk products so that they can better understand the risks and where to get advice’. As part of this, they’re advertising in UK cinemas right before Dumb Money screenings.

Dumb Money is based on the events of the GameStop short squeeze in 2021, when millions of ‘ordinary’ people were inspired by posts on Reddit and X (the artist formerly known as Twitter) to buy shares in a declining video game chain, in opposition of Wall Street players who were moving to short the stock.

Editor’s Note: In the interest of avoiding spoilers, we won’t go into detail about the GameStop short squeeze here. We have recapped the incident at the bottom of this post. Skip to the explanation →

Our thoughts on the campaign:

💜 We love the placement

The decision to advertise before this particular movie was excellent. They’re engaging with the right people at the right time through a really clever concept. It feels like a part of the movie experience given the shared themes and its placement in the Gold Spot (after the trailers, right before the movie starts).

📽 Made for the cinema

The advert makes perfect use of the sensory experience of a cinema environment to give optimum impact – with lights down and a blank screen, an authoritative voice has the audience’s undivided attention as it describes a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make some serious money”.
 
Soon, on-screen visuals reveal this ‘tipster’ to be a random person posting online and pushing people to invest right away, without thought or research. The ad ends with a clear, powerful CTA from the financial regulator: Don’t Get Played.

💡 Innovative targeting

This is a prime example of meeting your audience where they already are. It is a whole lot easier (and more effective) to join the conversation than it is to start your own from scratch. Beyond the pre-movie ad spot, the marketing team at the FCA are also using geotagging and digital advertising in cinema foyers to reach their target audience.

🚨 Gross buzzword alert!

The FCA’s marketing team really considered *synergy* here. There is an obvious connection between the movie and campaign’s target audiences. Placing their ad before this movie will help the FCA to point prospective new investors to much-needed educational resources.

Emma Stranack, Head of Content and Channels at the FCA, said: “This new film gives us the perfect opportunity to encourage less experienced investors to understand the risks, avoid hype and do the necessary research before they invest. This is the first time we’ve created a cinema advert tied-in with a specific film. The subject-matter is directly aligned to our target audience’s interests and the cinema provides a unique environment to capture their attention.’“

🕺 Strategic, but ready to move

We love a business that is willing to jump on timely ideas like this one. Their agility is especially impressive given that the FCA is such a large, compliance-centric organisation. You’d expect approval to take ages in a place like this, but the idea came up just recently.

According to this article by The Drum, a few people at the FCA saw ads for Dumb Money over the ‘Barbenheimer’ weekend and recognised an opportunity to align their campaign with the film. They had to move quickly to secure the spot and get the campaign ready.

💯 Top marketing marks!

Overall, this gets top marks from us. They saw an opportunity and weren’t afraid to grab it.

Whether it’s a struggle to get sign off from above, or fear of deviating from the plan, it can be hard to do something unexpected – even when it aligns so well with your original marketing strategy. But sometimes the pieces just fall into place; a great concept, perfect placement, the right audience, and an organisation willing and able to move fast when needed – this is opportunistic marketing at its finest!

⚠ Beware! Spoilers beyond this point….

If you don’t want to know about the events that inspired Dumb Money before you see the film, stop reading now!

What was the GameStop short squeeze?

GameStop, a US video game retailer, had been struggling for a while, largely because of a decline in in-person game purchases. In January 2021, as their stock price declined, institutional investors (think hedge funds and venture capital funds) began short selling their stock.

Short selling is basically just gambling with stocks and shares. Institutional investors borrow shares to sell on the open market with the expectation that the price will soon decline. The idea is to buy them back later at a lower price, return the shares to the lender, and enjoy the profits made from the price difference.

On a Reddit forum called WallStreetBets, a group of retail investors (non-professionals) noticed that GameStop was heavily shorted. They saw an opportunity to ‘squeeze’ the short sellers by banding together, buying stock, and driving up the price. As word spread on social media, even more retail investors joined in, and GameStop’s stock price surged.

There is a lot more to this story but the key thing to know is that the surge caused significant market volatility and forced short sellers to buy back their borrowed shares at much higher prices, with significant losses – we’re talking $billions here.

A number of online brokerage platforms (particularly app-based services like Robinhood) restricted or limited trading in GameStop and other volatile stocks. This sparked controversy and accusations of market manipulation which later led to lawsuits.

As the stock price once again dipped, a lot of retail investors lost their money too. Regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) were prompted by this event to investigate potential market manipulation and trading irregularities. It also raised questions about market fairness and structure, regulation, short selling, and the dynamics of stock trading in the digital age.

Needless to say, this is likely to be an interesting movie, and you can certainly see why the FCA would want to place a warning message about ‘hype stocks’ before it. You can find out more about the FCA’s InvestSmart campaign here or watch the trailer:

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