Founded in 2016 by a former Sequoia Capital partner, Empower is an AI-powered financial assistant offering competitive digital banking services in the U.S. In 2018, the company was planning to launch their digital banking product. Empower was a challenger in a crowded fintech space. With peers such as Ally Bank and Chime, and more traditional banks such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America, all vying for market share, Empower had to first establish itself as a credible AI-powered financial assistant and then as an innovative digital bank. Ditto’s primary task was devising a plan to make a big splash for Empower’s digital banking offering.
Ahead of the launch, the Ditto team created and executed several media relations campaigns to build momentum while simultaneously crafting a comprehensive launch strategy for Empower’s digital banking offering. Ditto worked closely with the Empower team to pull timely data and craft storylines on a monthly basis to highlight consumer trends and attitudes towards numerous facets of personal finance, which were covered in the media.
While working through the proactive campaigns, Ditto created a multi-pronged announcement strategy to elevate Empower’s digital banking offering above its fintech peers. Ditto advised Empower to leverage the digital banking offering alongside announcing a $4.5M seed investment led by Initialized Capital and Sequoia Capital, and worked to drive awareness and media attention by utilizing specific story angles tailored for personal finance, fintech and business reporters. Ultimately, the Empower digital banking news received positive coverage in mainstream consumer media.
The Empower Banking launch was featured in Forbes, USA Today, Fortune and Axios. The following day, USA Today wrote a second piece about Empower’s offering alongside Chime and Wells Fargo. Proceeding the launch, Ditto secured coverage in CNBC and several stories in Business Insider (story 1, story 2), as well as coverage in trade media. Ditto also secured coverage for Empower in a piece focused on neo-banks in The New York Times.
Outside of media relations, the Ditto team helped Empower host a Reddit AMA with Alexis Ohanian, Initialized Capital founder and Reddit co-founder, and Chelsea Fagan, author of The Financial Diet.
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