Building on the power of connections. That’s Plaid.
Plaid owns the world's largest and most trusted open banking network—powering startups, apps, and platforms. Used by over 100M people, they give merchants access to data and insights no other company can offer.
We built our campaign for the annual product event around connections—showing how limited data can be, until it is part of a network and transformed into insights.
Role: Associate Creative Director
Internal pitching to execs
Event naming and messaging
Conceptor and visual identity developer
Created event style guide
Became best buds with the 72-year-old script manager on set
Channels:
Over 600 assets across paid and organic social, site, video, product, and email
Results:
$6 million in pipeline (up 57% YoY)
724 marketing qualified leads, meaning they were likely to convert into customers
12 press stories highlighting products and speaking about and Plaid’s network, including Fast Company
2 in-person happy hours, attended by top customers and prospects like J.P Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and PayPal
One movie-quality event, streamed for 88 minutes
In order to get internal buy-in for our campaign and event concept, we pitched a story of building and scaling connections.
We wanted to bookend the stream with cinematic intro and outro. To start the show, we built a story around the pixel joining the network and building into something more. Our outro focused on the expansiveness of the network and millions of connections and insights it holds.
Intro
Outro
Trailer
Registration page
Streaming site ahead of the event
Post event site
“The dedication you bring to strategy and craft is evident across every element of this project. I bet you’re even thinking of ways to A/B test this quote on your portfolio.”
After a successful livestream that beat goals and 2024’s attendance by 22%, we brought the concept of connections to life by throwing an afterparty.
Fraud prevention is one of Plaid’s key product areas, and AI was the hot topic of 2024. In order to encourage conversation about fraud at the afterparty, we showcased AI’s current capabilities to build deepfakes of portraits. Executives at Plaid sent us their headshots, and we teamed up with a mathematician who used several programs to create photorealistic portraits.
Can you spot the deepfakes?
Post event, we reached out to customers who registered for the event but were unable to attend with a “Missed Connections” email, like you might see on Craigslist.
The email had a staggering 53% open rate ( a 27% YoY increase) and a 16% CTR (23% YoY increase), opening the door for more creative approaches in future campaigns.
Subject line: Missed connection: Plaid Effects
Preheader: We met online, for just a moment….