Wealth Simple Trade App

2020

When Wealthsimple challenged us to create a spot for their new Zero Fee Trade App we got inspired. The result is this catchy, tongue-twisting ode to investing. The stock on this has gone way up since this went viral and started racking up millions of views. Just another 3.706 billion more views and we got Gangnam Style by the balls.

We were in the midst of a brand new launch campaign for Wealthsimple when Covid shut down life as we know it. But as the lockdown continued, Wealthsimple was noticing a massive uptick on their Trade App. So a decision was made to pivot to a brand film that trumpets their Zero Commission Fee.

We wanted to create a fun, original song to accompany a visual concept that used a ‘zero’ as a compositional device. From the zero we cycled through all the various investment sectors that Wealthsimple trades in. The challenge was reducing each sector down to a visually compelling and instantly digestible icon. Guess which one’s our favorite ;)

Audio Inspiration

The client loved the nostalgia of Animaniacs and Schoolhouse Rock jingles. Throw in a healthy dose of Gilbert and Sullivan’s crowd-pleasing “I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major General” and you can even make investment sectors like Disruptive Technologies and Genome Sequence Editing sound like a barrel of monkeys.

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We explored many different design iterations in order to distill the investment sectors down to a single icon. We had to find a way to use color in thirty different shots while staying within the brand guidelines. The final hurdle for us was making the 3D animation sing while remaining flexible as the script evolved.

It helps to have great clients. The CEO and CMO of Wealthsimple were nimble partners, adjusting on the fly to the pandemic, and we developed a great relationship with them with tons of trust. Five weeks and thirty CG shots later the hard work paid off.