• by Tanya Gazdik , January 14, 2016

The holidays are over and consumers everywhere are pondering what to do with unwanted gift cards.

Enter Coinstar Exchange, which exchanges gift cards for cash. The brand is launching a digital/online campaign including three 30-second spots created by Boulder, Colo. advertising agency Grenadier.

The first spot features operatic music playing in a darkly lit restaurant as a guy is about to become one with a mountain of spicy Buffalo wings.

"These wings used to be a gift card to a bath and bedroom store," a voice informs viewers as the scene switches to an overly illuminated retail environment stacked sky high with identical white towels. "You wanted extra cash for atomic, apocalyptic wings and you wanted it right now." Happily, the food orgy soon resumes after the man is shown converting his plastic to paper money.

Other executions feature a woman trading hobby store credit she probably won’t ever use for "something that really pumps her up" (a gym membership) and a vegetarian swapping steak for an axe (a new electric guitar). Each ad closes with a link to the Coinstar website and the tagline, "Coinstar Exchange. Cash Out."

The bright yellow Coinstar Exchange kiosks can be found in select grocery retailers nationwide and accept gift cards from more than 150 stores and restaurants.  

Earlier this year, Coinstar and Grenadier hit the streets to film ads that show just how much loose change Americans tuck away in jars, junk drawers and couch cushions ($56 on average).

In a game show-type experience, people were offered the choice of a crisp $50 bill or a jar full of coins that could be run through Coinstar’s green kiosk. While most subjects assumed the sum of the nickels and pennies was piddly, it actually surpassed the value of the paper currency.