Money (That's What I Hear)

While Abba asserts money is “funny,” Pink Floyd proclaims “it’s a gas,” and Eric B. and Rakim want to be “paid in full,” and while those songs may be about money they aren’t composed by it. However, Interac and longtime creative agency partner Zulu Alpha Kilo want to change that by making a soundtrack out of Canadian’s spending.

Interac and ZAK produced a tool that converts shopping trends into music as a part of the brand’s new InLife creative platform. To launch the tool, Interac and ZAK analyzed a year and a half of Canadian shopping trends over the course of the pandemic. Debit spending on food, home, entertainment, travel and shopping were mapped against different musical instruments, revealing the changing spending habits of Canadians over time, and demonstrating the beginning of the economy recovery through rising shopping levels or “notes” in recent months. 

In the national Canadian track, shades of “Tears Are Not Enough,” one can hear the grocery spike at the outset of the pandemic, as well as a rise in wellness and home goods spending. Stay at home has a new soundtrack. Individual consumers can generate their own spending soundtrack by entering amounts across the same four key spending categories at www.interac.ca/soundofspending. Everyone’s track will be different depending on their spending, and each month could bring a new track depending on your habits.

“Helping Canadians better understand, and in turn stay in control of their money, is a key part of our new InLife platform. Leveraging data and technology to create an emotive output like music allows us to connect with our tech-savvy audience in a unique way,” says Matt Houghton, Director of Digital and Integrated Marketing at Interac. “We’ve never seen shopping trends brought to life this way – it makes you stop and think about how we spend as both a nation and as individuals.”

“Not only is Interac here for Canadians, but we want to reinforce our day-to-day connection with them in their own language. Music is one universal language we all can relate to, whether we have a deep grasp of our finances or are just learning to navigate our spending,” said Wain Choi, Executive Creative Director, Zulu Alpha Kilo.

Credits

Client: Interac
Agency: Zulu Alpha Kilo
Chief Creative Officer: Zak Mroueh
Executive Creative Director: Wain Choi
Art Director: Michael Romaniuk
Writer: Marco Buchar
Designer: Damian Simev, Brian Banton, Zoe Kim
Creative Technology: Jake Edwards
Account Team: Alyssa Guttman, Kara Oddi, Risa Kastelic
Planning Team: Sean Bell, Spencer MacEachern
Clients: Andrea Danovitch, Matt Houghton, Meghan Jeffery, Rachel Kellogg, Chingtien Chang
Media Agency: Media Experts
Media Team: Rachel Schmidt, Latoya Taylor, MacKenzie McNevin, Keaton Dale
PR Agency: Hill+Knowlton Strategies
PR Team: Samantha Kay, Geetika Kher
French Agency: The French Shop
French Account Team: Roxane Caron, Marie-Ève Fraser and Anne Ouellet
French Creatives: Patricia Doiron, Joëlle Fournier and Gwenaëlle Clément-Gagnon
Producer: Ece Inan, Greg Hennessy, Adam Palmer, Lauren Schell
Animation and editing: Ashlee Mitchell
Production House: Zulubot
Director: Barbara Shearer
Post Production Company: Zulubot
Editor: Mallory Robbins
Audio Mixer: Noah Mroueh
Music House: Oso Audio
Audio Engineer: Daenen Bramberger
Interactive Artist: Andrew Martin