From “Arriving” to “Building.”
Newcomers are transitioning from just arriving to building roots. They lack a financial partner that recognizes their individual needs and customizes a financial plan to reach their goals.
Student IMC
TBWA\ Canada x Seneca
Art Direction
Launch/Relaunch
Invisible Assets
A campaign platform that reframes newcomer banking from starting over to building forward.
Overview
Newcomers to Canada represent a highly ambitious, high-potential segment, yet many feel like they are starting from zero when entering the financial system. With our campaign, we help newcomers see that their experiences, ambitions, and achievements are valuable assets worth investing in.
My Role
I help transform research, audience insights, and business objectives into integrated campaigns that connect across digital, social, experiential, retail, and physical touch-points.
Through my work as an Art Director, I also contribute to strategy development, qualitative and quantitative research, audience segmentation, insight generation, creative conceptualization, visual storytelling, and campaign execution.
Team
- Art Director
- Christine Uy
- Copywriter
- Nicole Chan
- Strategy & Accounts
- Andrew Campaner
- Strategy & Accounts
- Raphael Angeles
The Shift
The Insight
The Big Idea
Turn a tone of pity into a rally of encouragement.
Competitors framed the newcomer story as struggle. We reframed it as recognition. BMO doesn’t just see newcomers, it recognizes them entirely for their individual efforts, the dreams, ambitions, success stories, and aspirations they already carry. We named that idea: individuality worth investing in.
Make the invisible visible.
BMO recognizes your potential by acknowledging all the assets in your life. Every newcomer is issued a piece of BMO luggage, and the stickers on it tell the story of where they’ve been and what they’re building. What’s in your BMO bag?
100%
of Canada’s population growth by 2040 will be driven by immigration, led by a highly entrepreneurial first-decade cohort.
WARC
63%
of newcomers are already planning to launch the businesses of tomorrow.
Toronto Metropolitan University, 2024
55%
have higher advanced education attainment than the average Canadian.
Statistics Canada, 2024BMO recognizes your potential by acknowledging ALL the assets in your life.
Digital - FairChild TV
Extending the campaign into high-intent digital placements.
The digital expression carries the same airport-inspired visual language into a direct acquisition touchpoint, giving newcomers a clear path from campaign awareness to BMO NewStart consideration.
Digital - Social Media
A social system built for recognition, pride, and participation.
Social extensions make the idea easy to recognize and share, turning the BMO bag into a symbol for the assets newcomers already carry.
Transit OOH
OOH that turns arrival into momentum.
Transit placements meet newcomers in the movement of the city, reframing financial onboarding as a confident next step instead of a cold start.
30 Second Hero Video - What’s your BMO Bag? Family First
Grounded in family, ambition, and the things people bring with them.
Social Media Partnership - Influencers
Bring awareness to “Invisible Assets” through newcomer bag stories.
Sample UGC captions were created to illustrate how the big idea translates into social content and sets up the second phase of the campaign.
Social UGC
What's in your BMO bag? #mybmojourney
We’re calling for newcomers to share their own bag stories. Influencer partnerships and a UGC engine invited newcomers to share their own invisible assets under #mybmojourney.
Experiential
BMO will bring the airport experience at Eaton Centre.
While CIBC is a long-term partner of Toronto Pearson International Airport, BMO can create its own arrival moment in a high-traffic public space.
With its established presence with high foot traffic.
“Invisible Assets” will be shown on the LED screen that faces outside the mall.
Personalized and Multicultural Financial Advisors
You will meet multicultural financial advisors that recognize your invisible assets and speak your language. For BMO, your dreams are worth investing in.
BMO Boarding Pass
Passengers will get a BMO Invisible Assets inspired sticker pack. A stamping station inside the Eaton Centre terminal lets visitors customize their own luggage sticker.
Our QR code leads to a microsite that showcases BMO bag stories and key features of opening an account with BMO’s NewStart Program.
The Rollout
Comms framework · Live June 1 – Aug 31, 2026
A three-phase flight from hook to payoff.
The Hook
Weeks 1–4 · Jun 1 – Jun 30
- 30s hero video spot
- Influencer partnerships
- UGC kickoff: “What’s in my BMO bag?”
- Fairchild TV + GTA frequency
The Long Burst
Weeks 5–8 · Jul 1 – Jul 28
- Boarding Pass Experience (XM)
- OOH + transit station takeover
- Microsite amplification
The Final Win
Weeks 9–13 · Jul 29 – Aug 31
- Digital fulfillment + retargeting
- UGC winners video series
- Hero spot across social
Media Planning
A $2.15M media plan, built to convert.
The campaign was costed as a real national buy, weighting investment toward the high-impact OOH and the experiential moment where the idea did its heaviest lifting, with a contingency fund to keep a live activation healthy.
Student IMC project completed for the TBWA\Canada brief at Seneca Polytechnic @ York. BMO is not a client; all marks belong to their owners. Figures and plan are proposed, not live results.
High-Impact OOH
TMU station takeover · Eaton Centre digital
Digital & Social
Paid social (TikTok/IG) · Fairchild TV
Regional OOH
TSA + billboards across the GTA
Production & Content
Hero film · influencer fees · microsite
XM Space & Logistics
Venue · stamping station · boarding passes
Optimization Fund
Contingency to boost what’s working
Total Investment
$2.15M