Elliptic

Overview

Elliptic offers risk management and compliance systems for the tokenized economy, battling for supremacy at the forefront of a changing financial system. In a category dominated by two major US players, Rival devised a campaign to deliver talkability and recognition as part of a breakthrough strategy into the US market.

Banks treat waiting as the zero-risk choice. But in a market that's already moving, waiting is a bet on coming second. What breaks the stalemate isn't more conviction. It's proof that both sides of the institution can accept.

Context

Money20/20 is the biggest fintech event of the year. It is also the most expensive room in fintech to be noticed in. Competitors invest heavily in sponsorship, events, booths, signage and swag - a conference floor built for brands with budgets Elliptic, as the challenger, was not going to out-spend.

Brief

Make Elliptic one of the most talked-about brands at Money20/20, without buying a traditional booth or a seat at the sponsorship table.

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Challenge

Standing out at a crowded event requires an idea specific enough to the brand's actual story that nobody else in the room could have done it - a generic stunt would have been noise. The activation also had to connect to Elliptic's real product narrative: moving clients from traditional wallets toward stablecoin.

Convention Challenged

The category default is to compete on production value - bigger booths, more signage, louder swag. Rival flipped that convention instead of playing inside it: the one object at any conference nobody ignores is a lost wallet.

Approach

Rival built hundreds of wallets and planted them across the event and inside - a prompt to learn that ‘Some Day is Now’. Encouraging clients out of their state of indecision and instilling a sense of urgency and FOMU, to move away from traditional wallets toward stablecoin. A low cost, physical, impossible-to-ignore object tied directly to the brand's actual product story. Anyone who found one was pointed to post it on LinkedIn, tag Elliptic, and use #VivaLasStablecoin for a chance at a Vegas experience upgrade.

The team moved at the pace the idea demanded. A fifteen-second teaser was filmed at 7am on a Saturday at the airport and delivered to the client by 2pm the same day, ready to post the next morning. The production crew was two camera operators and a producer. Over a hundred wallets were assembled by hand, in a hotel room, the night before. Supported by airport out-of-home and coordinated lunch branding, the wallets sparked surprise and social sharing.

Impact

Elliptic became one of the most talked-about brands at Money20/20 - without a booth, and at a fraction of the production cost of the sponsorships surrounding it.