In fintech company Chime’s latest commercial, Jason Momoa plays five characters in 30 seconds to show how the app provides a more modern banking experience.
“New Day,” debuting on Christmas Day, is the second installment of Chime’s first-ever holiday campaign, “Bank Smarter This Season.” The spots were created by Mojo Supermarket and directed by Freddie Powell.
In the new ad, Momoa plays five different New Yorkers, including a bodega clerk and his father, a barista, and a doorman.
As the characters narrate, a new Chime customer sails past a malfunctioning ATM and a long line of people, representing the “old way” of banking. Instead, she’s reaping the benefits of fee-free banking, cash back, and high-yield savings.
The spot is a new approach for Chime, which historically focused on more general banking-focused stories of progress, according to Orlando Baeza, Chime’s vp of brand and creative, who joined the company in late 2024.
Chime saw an opportunity to go contextual for Q4 and came up with the concept to show how banking should be easy and support everyday people.
Most of Chime’s advertising has also featured the company’s customers, but it has begun incorporating famous figures such as NFL star and coach Deion Sanders and NBA stars Kendrick Perkins, Kenny Smith, and Mark Jackson. Baeza described the move as part of Chime’s creative evolution.
“We are not going to stop using our members in advertising,” Baeza said. “But now we’re complementing it with faces and personalities that Americans know and love, and we’re bringing a different dynamic into our go-to market and communications by doing so.”
Chime’s larger marketing strategy aims to scale unaided awareness, consideration, brand affinity, and trust across its target audience of Americans earning up to $150,000 a year.
In the campaign’s first spot, which debuted in October, Momoa played three characters, including a bald mattress salesman, who resonated with audiences. Baeza said the ad delivered a 15-point lift in consideration in creative testing and 20-plus point lift in key brand equities and attributes. Its performance extended across the funnel to website visits, and resulting new enrollments have exceeded all previous brand creative.
