Venmo Ups The Ante On Zelle

In the latest salvo by payments app Venmo, lobbed towards the big banks, the firm is debuting what Reuters terms a “major promotional campaign,” its first, gunning for a share of millennial wallets and mindshare.

Reuters reported that the firm will bow 15- and 30-second video ads, first scheduled to begin coming out on cable networks on Sept. 12 and including channels such as MTV and Comedy Central. There will also be campaigns on Hulu, YouTube and more traditional media, including billboards.

The formal ad campaign marks a departure from standard customer acquisition practice for the firm, which has, as the newswire noted, gained users through word of mouth. But upping the ante, for Venmo, may be a necessity as a consortium of big banks have launched a competing payment app called Zelle. That consortium includes Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. Zelle is likely to go live during the first half of next year and would be playing a bit of catch-up with Venmo, which processed as much as $3.9 billion in payments in the second quarter of this year.

The Venmo promo campaign will run for two months, Reuters reported.