Get a Partner That Is Fluent in Finance

While many brand marketers plaster “AI powered” across their campaigns, FactSet, a global provider of financial information, is taking a radically different approach. Last week, the company flooded New York’s financial district with an innovative out-of-home campaign that uses AI’s own limitations to make the powerful point that “not all AI is fluent in finance.”

Created by leading strategy and creative agency VSA Partners, the campaign features AI-generated images that humorously illustrate what can happen when AI isn’t fluent in the nuances of institutional finance. Referencing the term “hedge,” businesspeople are shown examining an actual garden hedge in a corporate office. And for “bear market,” another ad shows bears pushing shopping carts through a supermarket. The message: If AI doesn’t understand your business’s language, then how can you trust it with your most critical decisions?

This campaign challenges the assumption that all AI is created equal, acknowledging the reality every financial services professional has experienced when some AI-powered tool delivers information or insights that, at best, don’t suit their business and, at worst, are totally wrong.

FactSet isn’t competing on specs, features, or the traditional industry playbook. Rather, it is competing on values, making the case that enterprise buyers need transparent, traceable, and responsible AI purpose-built for finance.

AI-generated images were used for the campaign’s visuals, intentionally exposing the weaknesses of such tools when it comes to specialized industry language. It is a metacommentary that enterprise buyers will immediately understand. The images are funny precisely because they demonstrate the problem that FactSet solves.

The campaign will saturate New York’s financial district by way of the subway system, targeting enterprise decision-makers.

The tagline — “Get a partner that is fluent in finance” — positions FactSet not as a vendor, but as an ally that speaks their language better than anyone else.