Cash App's Community-Driven Cultural Dominance
Cash App has captured Gen Z's trust and attention, and teens see it as one of the top 15 coolest brands in existence.
They’ve created an innovative brand that echoes their community's individual, social, and cultural experiences. But that isn't enough anymore, especially with Gen Z who’s keen to learn from Millennials’ mistakes. Transparency, trust, and convenience are critical for this booming demographic, and digital wallets serve them by eliminating middlemen and enabling direct transactions between consumers and merchants.
Cash App has earned trust and credibility by infusing its values and purpose into everything they do. Economic equality and empowerment are the drumbeats to the brand's wild, creative vibe, as they welcome you into a relatable discussion about money. Because users can quickly self-identify with their well-defined, inspiring community and environment, they can jump in head first and proudly declare their membership.
Cash App’s Core Building Blocks of Community
Co-Creation
Empower users to express their identity through the product and experience creatively. Unlock new behaviors that allow them to shape, re-mix and see their contributions to the brand's success. Cash App's cards encourage users to engage and express their identity and creativity in their design.
I created my glow-in-the-dark green card with ice cream, a peace sign, and lightning bolt icons. I get genuinely excited to throw it down in a sea of Sapphires, and before I know it, I'm raving about how phenomenal this Fintech company is.
Symbols of Fandom
Cash App's apparel reflects its values and inspires a creative, collaborative, and culturally-relevant environment, allowing evangelists to buy into the mission.
CashApp has set a new bar among finance and tech companies with stylish, highly sought-after apparel collaborations. Their designs are comparable to those of esteemed brands like Kith or Adidas - creating an exclusive experience for Cash App's creative community.
My brother-in-law gave me the rain jacket for Christmas last year, mainly as a joke because he thought it was utterly outrageous that a Finance company would make something so wild, and I was the only person he thought would wear it. I don't l know who the joke was on, but it certainly wasn't CashApp. Or me. He was right; not everybody would wear their vibrant, quirky designs. But that's not the point. They're for the wild and passionate who value self-expression and individuality. And those that do, like me, feel proud to rep and talk about the brand.
Cultural Vernacular
Language is a powerful tool to create shared experiences and build deeper connections through cultural context.
Cash App actively listens, and speaks in the language and codes of culture their audience uses. Their use of slang, emojis, and acronyms makes them feel relatable, builds stronger relationships, and has opened the gates for Cash App to participate in the cultural conversation.
$Cashtags make it fun and social to share and talk about the brand online. If they had stuck with the "safer" username or even handle, this key branding element undoubtedly wouldn't have taken on the life that it has. The vaseline to petroleum jelly, if you will.
CashAppFriday and $Cashtags in the Wild started as organic trends where users would share requests and send money to each other $Cashtags. Cash App joined in and continues to add fuel to sustain the fire.
There are more than 1,000 songs titled 'Cash App' on Spotify. That is absolutely bananas and something very few brands can claim. Do you know any songs called "Bank of America" or "Visa"?
Creative Commitment
To reward the community's user-generated content and stay true to the brand's guiding principle of economic empowerment and creative freedom, they launched Cash App Studios in 2021 to help bring financial freedom to more visionary, independent artists.
Cultural Context through Design
Cash App's brand design is a premium reflection of the user's contextual experience in social. It's funky, it's slick, and it's undeniably appealing. Branded content sticks out like a sore thumb all too often because the user's contextual experience in the app, on the phone, and in real life needs to be considered.
Reflecting Social Identities
As someone who has spent an ungodly amount of time staring at photos of hands holding phones thanks to my time working on Samsung, Apple, and Verizon, let me tell you how refreshing it is to see culture and identity reflected in these not-so-little details.
Cash App used this as another opportunity to make the human on the other side of the screen feel seen and heard. Out was the white hand with short, clear nails, and in went the long, pointy stiletto nails, bright polish, tattoos, and glitter on dark, lively hands.
Conscious Collaborations
Cash App has been investing heavily in artist and athlete partnerships that reflect their community with a clear thread: they've Black American Icons that started from scratch and hustled their asses off to build their own success stories. They partnered with Travis Scott to give away $100,000 to his fans and then helped CardiB and Megan Thee Stallion to host a WaPP Party where they gave away $1MM on Twitter to users who shared their $Cashtag. Even athlete and investor Serena Williams promoted the company with Odell Beckham Jr. last summer.
Deliver Value
🪐 Billionaire Investor Ray Dalio Collaborated with recording artists Kendrick Lamar and pgLang in “That’s money” to help improve financial literacy and democratize investment opportunities.
🪐 Megan Thee Stallion's 'Investing for Hotties' educational series, where the recording artist broke down the fundamentals of investing, and Cash App gave away $1 million in stock on social for her community to invest.
Their most impressive content goes beyond the flash and the hype to reflect their mission and serve real value. Or as one commenter wrote;
"Educating us about finances and stocks that have historically only been taught to certain groups in society and bringing it to everyone. This is a MOVE."
Key Takeaways🪐
Co-Creation: Empower users to express their identity through the product and experience creatively. Unlock new behaviors that allow them to shape, re-mix and see their contributions to the brand's success.
Symbols of Fandom: Apparel and artifacts that reflect your values, purpose, and energy will encourage evangelists to buy into your mission.
Cultural Dialect: Actively listen and talk in the language and codes of culture your audience uses. Using slang, gifs, acronyms, and emojis builds trust, relatability, and stronger relationships and will allow you to participate in culture.
Creative Commitment: If your brand is leveraging art and culture and paying the recognizable faces at the top, you should consider supporting the community as a whole.
Cultural Context through Design: Watch, listen, and contextualize. Your audience could consume your content while walking down the subway stairs, juggling between apps ordering lunch, or watching a movie. Concept and create in-platform where your community is, considering tools like sound, captions, text, colors, and formatting. Cash App's design vibe feels like I'm getting invited to a futuristic music festival, and I'm here for it.
Reflect Social Identities: You can publish your D&I goals all you want, but you need to sweat the details to make the human on the other side of the screen feel seen and heard.
Conscious Collaborations: Celebrity, artist, and athlete partnerships need a coherent and strategic through-line that stimulates relevant value. Consumers shouldn't waste any mental calories trying to figure out why your brand brought XYZ into their feed and how it applies to them.
