BMO's 'Cosplay Bankers’ Announce Gamer Focused Offers at Fan Expo Canada

Following last year’s successful launch of BMO NXT LVL, making BMO the first bank on Twitch, today, BMO Financial Group continues gaining ground in the gaming space by working with Mastercard and their partners at the League Championship Series to launch a Mastercard* offer created for their fans. Knowing that any false move would receive scepticism from one of the world’s largest video game fan bases, BMO needed to communicate their Mastercard offer and prove their fandom in the most authentic way possible. So, they did what only the biggest fans of League Championship Series would do: go all out at Fan Expo Canada in cosplay. 

‘BMO Cosplay Bankers’, the immersive brand activation created by AOR FCB Canada, centres around two elaborately designed costumes depicting two of League of Legends most beloved playable characters: Trundle and Poppy. In partnership with Hacksmith Industries, the costumes were hand-crafted by pro cosplay/costume designers in Italy and Washington DC, specifically tailored for BMO’s Gaming Relations Specialist, the host of the BMO NXT LVL Twitch channel, Sean Frame. 

QR codes, created with new AI stable diffusion technology, were integrated into the costume design. When a League of Legends fan spots Frame in cosplay at Fan Expo, their first instinct will be to take a photo, unlocking QR codes and revealing a Hextech Chest key. The key will then drive them to BMO’s Fan Expo booth to open the Hextech chest and claim a prize.

“The campaign positions cosplay as a unique outdoor media channel,” explains associate creative director, Caleb McMullen. “‘Cosplay Bankers’ not only proves our fandom, but it also identifies our audience, intercepts their consumer behaviour, and incentivises visiting our booth, where they’ll learn about BMO’s Mastercard offer that is exclusively relevant to them,” adds associate creative director, Hussein Rumaithi.

‘BMO Cosplay Bankers’ is amplified by social, digital and out-of-home media including a recent sponsored 2-hour co-stream with League of Legends esports royalty, LL Stylish. Garnering an audience of over 58,000 unique viewers, the Twitch stream was ranked #2 globally in the multiplayer online battle arena category and #1 in finance. The video-on-demand can be streamed here.  

“This initiative further demonstrates our commitment to meeting the gaming community where they are in new and innovative ways,” said Maja Neable, CMO, personal and business banking and chief data and analytics officer, marketing, BMO. “Whether it’s launching a Twitch channel or activating at Fan Expo, we’ve learned we can help gamers make real financial progress through authentic human and digital experiences.”

You can find BMO’s Cosplay Banker roaming the halls of Fan Expo Canada at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre from Aug. 24th-27th. Learn more about this brand activation here.