Synchrony | Turning an In-House Agency into an Award-Winning Powerhouse
The Studio at Synchrony was not a typical in-house agency. Our 50-person team created retail card advertising for many of Synchrony’s Fortune 500 partners, national advertising for its consumer bank, business development proposals for world-class brands, and new product campaigns in a rapidly evolving payment landscape. As a member of the business development team, I developed proposal creative that helped Synchrony win new business with BP, Cathay Pacific Airlines, Nissan, At Home and Stash Hotel Rewards. Later, as part of the Synchrony Bank team, I created B2C work that helped the bank grow its total deposits from $52 billion in 2016 to $64 billion in 2018, while earning more than a dozen international creative awards.
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The Studio faced a unique mandate—to serve as an internal creative agency supporting multiple lines of business and produce creative work of the quality of top-tier creative agencies. On the B2C banking side, Synchrony needed to differentiate its savings products in a crowded landscape, where rates were similar among competitors. Having recently divested from GE Capital, Synchrony was relatively unknown in the marketplace, and furthermore elected to drop ‘Bank’ from its name, so headlines needed to clearly convey the nature of its business, while striking a fine balance between the safety of its FDIC-insured products and the relative strength of its rates within the category.
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We approached these challenges with a creative-first mindset, treating every assignment as an opportunity to tell a compelling story through bold visuals, clever messaging and strategic insight. For the Bank’s consumer campaigns, we leaned into emotional storytelling to make saving money feel aspirational and rewarding, rather than purely transactional:
Award-winningPrint Ads: Each magazine ad paired a stunning full-bleed photo—a solitary figure in a serene, picturesque setting—with a thought-provoking headline that invited readers to reconsider what saving money could enable for their lives. These ads ran in Time, Money, Fortune, Kiplinger’s, AARP, and other popular business publications.
Fortune 500 Sliver Ads: To capture attention in one of the year’s most-read issues, we created a 26-page spread featuring consecutive, interlocking ads that each highlighted a different savings benefit. A field of transparent plus signs created visual continuity, while each ad carried a three-word headline ending in “it up,” culminating with “It all adds up.”
Alternate Print Ad Concepts: We also explored a more conceptual visual approach, using plus signs to create ethereal, imaginative scenes. Paired with the headline “Escape the Ordinary,” these ads framed saving as the gateway to extraordinary life experiences.
CD Product Explainer Video: To demystify savings products, we created a series of Rube Goldberg-inspired animated videos. Each video followed a coin’s whimsical journey. This fun, visually engaging approach turned what could have been dry financial education into entertaining, award-winning content.
