Robo-advisor Betterment is getting a marketing boost from the success of New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, who will play in Super Bowl LX on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks.
The second-year star quarterback has been a brand ambassador for Betterment since he was drafted into the NFL in 2024. Maye has appeared in TV ads and digital campaigns for Betterment, which has about 1 million users who are retail investors and advisors that manage $65 billion in combined assets. Currently on Betterment’s website homepage, Maye is featured in a promotional offer for clients to receive $1,500 when they deposit $2,000 into a new Betterment investment account, with a scale down to $100 bonus for deposits of at least $2,500.
“We've been running media featuring Drake since about September, but in the last couple of weeks we keep increasing our media. We bought local markets around the playoffs and we've added much more organic social content, which has been boosted,” Betterment’s chief marketing officer Kim Rosenblum told InvestmentNews.
Betterment also provides 401(k) plans and a custodian platform for RIAs called Betterment Advisor Solutions. Maye’s play on the field has “personified the Betterment core values—calm, confident, long-term focused,” Rosenblum says, adding that Betterment donated $250 to Boston Children’s Hospital for every touchdown from Maye this season, totalling over $10,000.
“Drake is going to help drive brand awareness. We have seen incremental web traffic, especially in an LLM world where a lot of people are struggling with traffic, we're having the opposite. We're seeing record-high traffic,” said Rosenblum. “Specifically to the RIA space, we have woven some of our [Maye] content into some of our more corporate advertising, which includes messaging about Betterment Advisor Solutions.”
Citywire reported in September that Betterment was preparing to launch a client referral program for RIAs that custody with Betterment Advisor Solutions. They’d join several other custodians in developing new client referral programs for RIAs, including BNY Pershing, Goldman Sachs, and the Robinhood-owned TradePMR platform.
Betterment’s 30-second TV commercial with Maye shows him enjoying hobbies juxtaposed to a flustered “Drake Maybe,” who does not use Betterment for his finances. “Drake Maye sweats in the gym but not over his investments, because he uses Betterment to automatically diversify and rebalance his portfolio,” the ad states. “Drake Maybe sweats too, because he went all in on Snooslecoin.”
Not all of Betterment’s recent public-facing messaging has been as positive Maye’s ascent to Super Bowl stardom. In January, Betterment confirmed that hackers breached its systems to send crypto scam offers to some users, prompting lawsuits against Betterment regarding exposed client information.
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