Timothée Chalamet Tries to Buy Weird Veg with Cash App

Cash App’s latest campaign is a quiet meditation on technological evolution and how finances can be stressful and divisive, especially between generations.

To tell this story, Cash App has teamed up with actor Timothée Chalamet to craft a two-minute film also featuring the ‘Didi’ star Izaac Wang.

Written and directed by familiar Chalamet collaborators, Elijah Bynum and Object & Animal’s Aidan Zamiri, 'Heirloom' offers a glimpse into intergenerational views around money, with Timothée unwittingly helping a son to convince his father to adopt modern financial tools at his grocery store.

This marks the ‘Dune’ actor’s first-ever partnership with a financial services platform. “Financial literacy across all age groups is important, and this spot seeks to emphasise that,” said Timothée.

Speaking to LBB about the partnership, Cash App and Afterpay CMO Catherine Ferdon said, “Timothée is the ideal creative collaborator and partner for Cash App. We wanted to give Timothée a platform to encourage open conversations around money across age groups in a way that felt fresh and authentic to who he is as an artist.

“Timothée is one of the most talented and influential actors and creatives of his generation, with worldwide popularity, but specifically with gen z and millennials, which was the target audience for this special spot.”

According to Catherine, Timothée was deeply involved in the creative process for the spot, including the concept, script and direction. “We wanted to give him creative freedom to share Cash App in a way that felt authentic and resonated with his millions of followers,” she added.

“We wanted to hit home on the awkwardness and shame that often results from talking about money and highlight the difficulties of changing old habits. We’re hoping to spark conversations between generations about money, including families like the one featured in this commercial spot, leading to knowledge-sharing and making positive financial decisions.”

Today, content from the campaign – which also includes photography from Aidan Zamiri, OOH across New York and LA, and limited edition Cash App Card stamps designed with Timothée – was published on the actor’s and Cash App’s social media channels. The film is currently airing before ‘Superman’ in movie theaters across the US as well, and will appear ahead of ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ too.

As part of this, the brand has been engaging directly with Timothée fans online, surprising some of them with $25 movie-money, giving them the chance to catch the commercial spot in theatres. “Cash App did this to drive organic buzz and discovery amongst millions of movie-goers (genz and millennials, teens, parents, and families) and intentionally stoke interest and curiosity,” explained Catherine.

“Through this unique branded piece, we created a space that encourages open conversations around money across age groups in a way that felt fresh and authentic to who Timothée Chalamet is as an artist, while tapping into this fan base to drive new connections,” she said.

“We’re continuing to map marketing efforts toward increasing engagement of our 57 million monthly active customers (predominantly gen z and millennials), while expanding our network to teens and families as customers – a core focus of this commercial spot.”

Always keen to empower its celebrity collaborators to use their own creative lens when partnering with Cash App, the brand has teamed up with cultural icons like Sabrina Carpenter, Ramy Youssef and Doechii in the past year alone. Catherine added, “We’re thrilled to continue that momentum with Timothée.”