The news: Wells Fargo released a Super Bowl commercial with “Saturday Night Live” comedian Marcello Hernandez, per a press release.

This commercial will be a part of a wider advertising campaign, “Celebrate Every Win,” featuring Hernandez.

Inside the ad: Wells bucks traditional narratives connected to financial services ads that are usually connected to major, emotional life stages like homebuying, childrearing, or retirement, such as Traveler’s Insurance's “Growing Up” ad. 

Instead, “Celebrate Every Win” focuses on smaller victories, like hitting vacation savings goals or inching up a FICO credit score rating. Hernandez leads a “party patrol” to award extreme celebratory fanfare for little successes—signaling the bank wants to be enmeshed with consumers’ everyday success for better financial health.

Inside the strategy: The ad will air in Wells’ six top English-language markets and 10 top Spanish markets reached by NBC’s Telemundo, which will air Super Bowl LX in Spanish, per Variety. 

With a Latino star whose newest Netflix special draws from his family’s immigrant background featured in the commercial, Wells is making a concerted play for Spanish-speaking consumers’ business, which is a massive growth opportunity in the US:

• Roughly 10% of Hispanic households were underbanked in the US as of 2023, per the FDIC.
• And less than 50% of Latino immigrants have bank accounts.

Bad Bunny’s halftime performance will likely ensure deeper engagement with Latino viewers, as one of the biggest stars in Spanish pop culture—and the first Album of the Year Grammy winner for a total Spanish language project.

Implications for banks: As US financial services slim their TV ad spending budgets, per our forecast, banks should consider allocating money shaved from TV spend to digital video—Hispanic viewers have the highest digital video penetration at 87% in the US, per our forecast, meaning Wells likely will gain a deeper reach into the community per ad dollar.