Thousands of drifting light particles resolve into flowing patterns inside a new installation at the Oculus in Lower Manhattan. T. Rowe Price says the 10-foot-tall, 37-foot-wide piece mirrors how its active ETF managers work.

Key Takeaways:

• A new art installation at the Oculus reflects T. Rowe Price’s active ETF strategy.
• The two-day display uses two years of real market data and runs through July 23.
• T. Rowe Price’s active ETF lineup has grown to more than 30 funds and $25 billion in assets.

“Signals From the Noise” opened July 22 at The Shops at the Oculus inside the Westfield World Trade Center. It runs through July 23, according to a T. Rowe Price press release. The asset manager built the two-day display with WIRED and data visualization artist Karyn Nakamura. Nakamura fed two years of real market data into particles that shift from chaos into color.

This kind of experiential marketing reflects a shift in how T. Rowe Price sells its active ETFs. Instead of traditional advertising, the firm is leaning on arts and culture. Kelly Fredrickson, T. Rowe Price’s head of global brand and public relations, described the shift in an interview. The push comes as the firm’s active ETF lineup has grown to more than 30 funds, with combined assets surpassing $25 billion, according to the press release.

Research on financial advisors shaped the concept, Fredrickson said in an interview. Advisors spend time on sports, she said, but they also gravitate toward “culture and the arts.” That insight pointed the firm’s agency toward Nakamura, whose data-driven work fit the brief.

Fredrickson said she guides her team by three principles: breakthrough creative, outsmarting rather than outspending competitors, and measuring everything. Financial services marketing tends toward sameness, so campaigns need to look different to cut through. Larger rivals in the category outspend T. Rowe Price on advertising, which is why distinctive creative work matters more than budget size.

Installation Extends Multiyear NYC Campaign

This marks the third year T. Rowe Price has built a campaign around a physical stunt in a major city, Fredrickson said. A previous activation wrapped cars in tickers around San Francisco. Last year, the firm flipped a New York newsstand upside down with Bloomberg to dramatize market volatility.

Digitas North America, the firm’s ad agency, brought Conde Nast and WIRED into this year’s project, Fredrickson said. WIRED’s focus on the intersection of innovation and culture fit the calmer, museum-like concept behind Nakamura’s piece. That differed from the chaotic newsstand stunt Bloomberg helped produce a year earlier.

Nakamura’s installation carries into subway ads and digital campaigns across New York, Fredrickson said. The same signal-from-the-noise concept ties it together. The messaging will extend into football season through Baltimore Ravens signage, she added.

Active ETF Team Warms to the Idea

Video segments tied to the installation feature Jodi Love and Dom Rizzo, according to the press release. Love is the lead portfolio manager of four active equity ETFs. Rizzo manages the T. Rowe Price Technology ETF (TTEQ). Fredrickson said both portfolio managers connected with the concept during preproduction talks about their own process.

Fredrickson recalled Rizzo telling the team during one of those talks that “my portfolio is my art.” She said the remark captured why the metaphor resonated inside the firm, not just with outside audiences.

Getting executives to approve an installation of that scale was still a challenge, Fredrickson said. No one argued with the underlying strategy. But some questioned building a 10-foot-tall, 37-foot-wide object grounded in a single customer insight instead of a familiar ad format.

Fredrickson said executives signed off because the campaign was grounded in a clear customer insight, not a familiar format. She said that grounding, not format, is what gets ideas like this approved.

Measuring the campaign’s reach happens through brand-lift studies rather than typical ad metrics, Fredrickson said. The studies track exposure to the installation, subway ads and WIRED content, then compare brand impressions between people who saw the campaign and people who did not.

After last year’s newsstand stunt with Bloomberg, perceptions of T. Rowe Price as both an innovative and a premier brand climbed among the group that saw it.

T. Rowe Price has applied the same audience-research approach to its newer digital assets push. The firm built a standalone X (formerly Twitter) account for its recently launched T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF (TKNZ) fund, Fredrickson said. Crypto-focused investors are easier to reach there, she said, than through conventional channels.

See more: T. Rowe Research Charts a Disciplined Path for Crypto

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