What if your financial worries grew arms, eyes, and teeth—and then climbed onto a billboard? That was the bold idea behind Dunn&Co.’s campaign for Grow Financial, a Tampa-based credit union determined to make money matters less intimidating for a new generation. By inflating 14-foot monsters across the city and crafting a custom “Monster Alphabet,” the team turned mortgages, credit cards, and savings into approachable, shareable moments of OOH creativity. The result? A “Life Less Scary” campaign that proved even our biggest financial fears can be faced with a smile.

By: Max Dempster, Creative Director, Dunn&Co.

What happens when you take the very idea of financial anxiety and blow it up into literal 14-foot inflatable monsters? For Grow Financial, this was the heart of a billboard campaign that turned mortgages, credit cards, and savings accounts into eye-catching works of OOH art. In doing so, we proved that some creativity and a brand willing to put people before profit can make even the scariest money matters a little more approachable.

Grow Financial, a Tampa-grown credit union that got its start on MacDill Air Force Base, asked Dunn&Co. to help promote three core products: mortgages, credit cards, and savings accounts to a Gen Z and millennial audience. The challenge, and the insight? In a world lacking adequate financial education, these products are often seen as intimidating, inscrutable, and, frankly, scary.

Our solution was to make that fear visible, validate it, and then disarm it. Working with 3D artists, we created our Monster Alphabet, a custom typeface where every letter was a playful, slightly eerie creature. Some of the letters are spiky, some almost salivate, and others stare with huge slitted eyes. Each of Grow’s financial products came to life through these monster letters, with designs that balanced just enough fear factor to acknowledge financial anxiety and just enough charm to invite people in to learn more.

We wanted people to encounter these monsters in the real world. Billboards across Tampa Bay featured the Monster Alphabet not as flat art but as massive, three-dimensional inflatables that spilled out of their frames. The effect was striking: mortgage monsters looming over highways, savings beasts peeking playfully into the skyline, credit card creatures practically begging for a photo.

The response was immediate. The billboards got buzz, with passersby sharing photos online and in person. They stood out in the crowded financial category not just for their execution but for the way they shifted tone, shifting perception of our products from intimidating to intriguing. Just as important, the client loved them—so much so that our “Life Less Scary” campaign ran for an additional year with even more eye-catching monsters crawling around town (like a grinning, hungry city trolley).

These billboards were proof that even the biggest financial fears can be made a little friendlier, a little more approachable, with help from your friendly neighborhood credit union: Grow Financial.

Good in, good out. That’s always been the philosophy guiding Dunn&Co. since our opening in 2004. We believe that when good people come together to go all in on big ideas, good things are bound to come out of it. We are an odd but industrious group of travelers, creators, bagpipers, math nerds, illustrators, and restless locals who all have one thing in common: an insatiable desire to make good work. Fortunate to call the sunny skies of Tampa Bay home, we dig deep with research and strategic thinking to uncover that single piece of insight that will help consumers understand how your brand can fit into their lives and add meaningful value. We tinker and toil with great attention to detail until the right big idea is born.

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