Launching the Official Bank of the NBA.
In January 2024, after successfully establishing a strong foothold in football, SoFi turned its sights to a new ball game — with a different schedule, more social media presence, and global reach. We also signed Olympic gold medalist (and soon-to-be NBA Champion) Jayson Tatum.
The challenge
Expand on the success of our NFL investment with a different league partnership in order to offset lower brand visibility in the football off-season.
My role
As head of sports marketing creative, I oversee campaign and performance work for our NBA audience
Interface directly with NBA partners during tentpole events
Ensure creative adherence to league partnership guidelines, including the use of official game footage, while positioning ourselves uniquely from other official partners
Strategically evaluate and oversee major event activations, continuing to evolve our social playbook to adapt to the latest cultural opportunities and the geographical challenge of ever-changing host cities
The results
A 50% increase in unaided brand awareness among NBA fans in the 2024-2025 season
Nearly 1B total impressions over the first two weeks of the partnership
175+ pieces of social content across channels during All-Star Weekend 2024, our first tentpole event, thanks to our in-house content creators and on-the-ground social playbook
Top-performing creative featuring our new brand spokesperson Jayson Tatum months before he led the Celtics to the championship
Millions in earned media value from our SoFi Generational Wealth Fund, which contributed $1M to the Jayson Tatum Foundation to help first-time homebuyers in St. Louis
“This is a story about money.”
Shorty Impact Award Winner, 2024 — Financial Services
A little more product-focused. Just as ambitious.
Note: I art directed the arrangement of Jayson’s shoe vault (and even contributed a pair of my own for Deuce’s little collection*). It was easily one of the best things I’ve ever been paid to do.
*Yes, I have almost the same shoe size as a tall 6-year-old.
Bank for bank.
In our second NBA season, I was instrumental in introducing SoFi’s first trigger promo. It tied SoFi’s banking products to bank shots during the six high-stakes games of the SoFi Play-In Tournament — rewarding subscribed fans with cash for every bank shot.
The challenge
Deliver on the promise of being the Official Bank of the NBA, without a stadium or in-person perks to deliver to fans at scale.
My role
I oversaw creative teams to introduce eye-catching creative language across the campaign, including integration of official game footage with SoFi branding and motion graphics
I also developed a successful proposal that restructured campaign spend to enable a 10x higher member reward within the existing budget — earning buy-in from strategy and business leads and creating a more compelling incentive to sign up, that authentically reflected SoFi’s commitment to putting members first
The results
Our Play-In Tournament TV creative performed 138% above our previous top performer, while driving a measurable halo effect across other SoFi products
Next up: big plans for ASW 2026.
Coming soon.
creative direction
Created in house at SoFi, with production by Derby Studio.
Lead SoFi team:
ECD: Jonathan Woytek / GCD: Jackie Linayao / ACD: Marty Bonacorso / Sr. PM: Deiter Segura / Copywriter: Trent Matthews / Art Director: Brad Khauv / Editor: Kevork Demirjian / Motion Graphics: Caleb Grady, Matthew Cho