Last week, Bank of America launched Morris on Campus,™ Life According to an Upperclassman™. According to the bank, the promotion is designed to “educate and empower students to take control of their finances and bank with confidence in this new academic year.”

Unlike other Gen-Y online promotions, “Morris” is not the product of a “spokester contest,” but is instead a 23-year old actor from Teaneck, New Jersey, the bank hired for the promotion. You can view his MySpace profile here, where he goes by the pseudonym “Lo Profile.”

The campaign includes a microsite embedded within the B of A mastersite. The microsite includes a series of 7-8 video webisodes, some tips, tools and a glossary. Here are the highlights:

College Tips

13 financial tips (although #2 and #13 are the same)
7 dorm room tips (although #1 and #7 are the same)
9 food tips
7 class tips
5 random tips
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“Be Money on Campus” Contest

There’s a contest to submit your own tips too, but you have to be 18-25 years of age and going to college. Five finalists will be selected by B of A late next month. Each finalist will receive $5,000, then compete for an additional $25,000.

The finalists will have 14 days to use social media tools — including video, PowerPoint, third-party endorsements and a mandatory essay of 500 words (or less) — to argue why their tip is the most helpful and relevant their peers.
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Student Financial Handbook

A 65-page guide to basic financial services. Chapters include budgeting, checking, savings, investing, online banking, bank fees, credit cards, identity theft, a quiz and a glossary that’s 10 times better than the one at the On Campus website.
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Student Package

Includes CampusEdge Checking, with a check card, online banking and a Stuff Happens card that gives you a one-time bank fee refund, no matter what.
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B of A will also be taking its On Campus promotion on tour, with stops at colleges and universities across the country in coming weeks.

This is at least the third high-profile social media initiative from Bank of America this year. In April, B of A launched an online competition to support its Olympics’ sponsorship called America’s Cheer. And in June, B of A introduced Mo Rocca on Banking. (Note: there are blimps in both the Mo Rocca promotion and the Morris campaign. What’s up with that?)

You can read B of A’s press release about Morris on Campus here.

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Bank of America recently announced that it was introducing its first ever NASCAR-themed ad.

The 30 second spot titled “Who’s Your Driver?” features footage of a number of top NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers whose likenesses are available on NASCAR Banking check cards and credit cards. Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne, Juan Pablo Montoya and Martin Truex Jr., are featured in the new ad and are among the most popular drivers featured.

This ad is Bank of America’s third major campaign this year focused on sports fans, including deals with the Olympics and Major League Baseball (press release here). The brand has been very focused on upbeat, uplifting messages like “America’s Cheer 2008” (previous coverage from The Financial Brand here).

This latest spot starts with the line, “This is America, and you have the freedom to cheer.”

B of A has a good promotional tie-in with its co-branded debit and credit cards. At a special section of its website called “NASCAR RacePoints,” the bank details how you can earn points and “burn” them using their plastic products. You earn one RacePoint for every $4 in net retail check card purchases, and can spend them on exclusive NASCAR experiences, race tickets, NASCAR licensed products and goodies like flat panel TVs, iPods and much more.

Use the NASCAR card, get NASCAR stuff. “Earn and burn.” It’s a nice, self-reinforcing promotion.

Bank of America first launched its NASCAR program in 2007. As the “Official Bank of NASCAR,” B of A can offer NASCAR themed checks, debit and credit cards. B of A calls it ‘NASCAR Banking.’

“Our affinity products are some of the fastest growing products we have at the bank. And the NASCAR products are in the top 10 of those,” says Mike Hargrave, an executive with Bank of America’s NASCAR program.

It’s worth noting that B of A is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the heart of NASCAR country.

The NASCAR Banking ads, produced by worldwide advertising behemoth BBDO, won’t be running nationally until July.

You can read the full script for the spot on page 2. You can read B of A’s full press release here.

Bottom Line: NASCAR is on-brand for B of A. They should be the sponsor of American traditions like NASCAR. After all, their name is Bank of America. They’ve sponsored the Dallas Cowboys — “America’s Team” — for over two decades. The Olympics. MLB. And this announcement from today: the U.S. military. All things American. This is a much better, much more believable brand direction than “Higher Standards.” Two thumbs up.

Key Takeaway: Affinity products are a great way to engage people with a financial brand and counteract the dull, stodgy and boring image associated with the average bank or credit union. What brands can you link with? (Note: You don’t have to be a major brand, nor do you have to pick a major brand to partner with to succeed with this strategy.)

When Bank of America merged with MBNA back in 2006, they had a big internal event for bank executives. Two of them got up on stage and performed a remade version of U2’s hit single, “One.”

The song was rewritten to commemorate and celebrate the merger. You can read all the lyrics on page 2.

The duo — one guy singing and another guy on guitar — gave a pretty good performance. The singer, Ethan Chandler, a Manhattan banking center manager, is amazingly earnest and sincere. It’s pretty darn good, unless, of course, you’re a U2 fan, in which case you may equate it with musical murder.

The video has been viewed over 438,630 times at YouTube, so sorry if you’re one of them and you’ve seen it already. Here’s the video:

Go figure. A remake of a song about a bank merger sung by a bank executive. In a white shirt and tie. On about the dullest stage you can imagine. And it was viewed almost half a million times.

The party poopers over at Universal Music Publishing Group didn’t care for it. They promptly fired off a cease-and-desist to B of A, claiming copyright infringements. This is kind of surprising, since it’s obviously a gag, and meant for an internal audience only. UMPG’s legal maneuver must have failed though, since the video is still up.

You can read the New York Times story here.

Mo Rocca, a comedian and political satirist of some success, plays a man-on-the-street character in one of Bank of America’s latest promotions, “Mo on Banking.”

In a series of online videos at a microsite, Mo reports wryly on banking topics, including this tidbit from the intro video:

“Join me, Mo Rocca, as I dump a load
of banking knowledge on your internets.”

Yep, he said “internets.”

Here’s one of the videos to give you a better idea:

Throughout the series, Mo muses suggestively, and dupes people on New York streets with risque interview questions:

• “Remember when going to the bank was sexy?”
• “Did you ever imagine that banking could be this hot?”
• “Imagine if we were making-out and you could mobile bank at the same time…”
• “What would you say if I told you could transfer funds naked and check balances from bed?”
• “I wanna talk to you about your banking fantasies.”

You’d think people would respond to any attempt to make banking less dull (i.e., more fun). As Matt Davis, the CU Warrior recently said, “‘Fun’ works and ‘controversy’ works.” But maybe in this case, B of A’s campaign isn’t clicking with everyone?

“I don’t want a funny bank.
I want adults in suits to take my money seriously.”
— B.L. Ochman

One person, a blogger named B.L. Ochman, complained, “I don’t want a funny bank. I also don’t want sexual innuendos in my bank’s advertising. I want adults in suits to take my money seriously.”

Reality Check: Let’s be honest. When it comes to your personal life (not your professional life as a financial brand builder), banking is pretty boring. For most of us, it’s a chore we’d rather not do.

Key Questions:

• Are Mo Rocca’s innuendos over-the-top?
• Is the attempt at being “hip and contemporary” authentic? Or does it feel forced?

You can view five different videos at a YouTube page the bank created to support its Mo-promo.

Each segment concludes with the campaign’s catchphrase, “Bank the way you live.”

“Mo Rocca on Banking” joins “America’s Cheer 2008″(previous coverage from The Financial Brand here) as an example of B of A’s recent online marketing focus.

You can read the press release B of A used to alert bloggers about “Mo Rocca on Banking” here on page 2. The bank apparently didn’t use any traditional media or normal PR venues to support the initiative.

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