Money Mart is creating a “distinct world” of a multiverse to tell more aspirational stories.

Created by agency partner Hard Work Club, the “Money Mart and Move On” brand platform and campaign draws inspiration from real customer stories, as well as from pop culture stories involving a multiverse where different versions of the same characters exist in multiple time periods

This plays out in the campaign’s two spots, “Fender Bender” and “Prom Dress,” where each feature a doppelgänger of the protagonist, who’s more savvy and confident in facing and then resolving financial challenges.

These are two real scenarios that are at the centre of human needs, which the cash advance brand can help address through loan products, says Cameron Stark, Hard Work Club’s co-founder. Stark says the work is more aspirational and marks a tonal shift in the brand to “reflect the fact that our customers are strivers.”

Stark tells strategy that despite there being eight million people in Canada facing financial hardships, and many of them being recent immigrants, traditional lenders have turned their back on the audience.

“It takes so much courage to move 5,000 miles away from home, or try and restart your life after financial problems,” Stark says. “We wanted the brand tone to better reflect that.”

Money Mart wanted to “create a distinct world,” Stark says, to feel like it could be part of almost any time and place in Canada, reflecting anyone who is in crisis and requires financial flexibility.

“The brand has been dark for a couple of years, [and] now under new leadership, we are charting a new course for our products and our brand,” says Money Mart CEO Peter Kalen, calling the “Money Mart and Move” platform a first step and new introduction to the brand and its benefits, which will help distinguish it from both retail competitors and the influx of online competitors that have emerged in the past few years.

The campaign, running until the end of the summer, is the first for the brand by Hard Work Club, which was awarded the Money Mart remit in January. It is centred around two online videos, with media including cutdowns across OLV, programmatic, search and display ads, as well as social media. The buy was done in-house.

“Brand-building work can be done as effectively with online video as it can with traditional linear TV,” Kalen says. “We want to meet our customers where they are, and with Canadians spending two to three times more time with digital media vs. traditional TV, that’s how we prioritized our media spend.”

Additionally, it is supported by OOH and DOOH near Money Mart locations, complemented by robust in-store signage.

In-store posters and video boards mirror the messaging in the rest of the buy. The new visual identity that is part of the digital and OOH assets is a start as Money Mart works to refresh branding throughout its retail and online properties.