For North American bank Meridian and Toronto-based ad agency Elemental, Dan French directed this spot depicting a dystopian world populated by nameless folk. It’s a society in which there’s no personalized identity. Rather people are referred to by their account numbers, making the commercial–titled “World of Numbers”–a metaphor for the impersonal treatment some larger banks give their customers. By contrast, there’s a human-based, community-centric spirit provided by regional bank Meridian.
Produced by Impossible Studios, Toronto, in collaboration with Elemental, French (who’s repped by Stink Films in the U.S. and U.K.) sought to build a highly crafted and stylized world with depth. Through intricate set builds and choreographed cinematography, he constructed a narrative to transmit the somber energy behind a nameless society. Casting was a fun but rigorous task. French and his team set out to find a diverse group of people to accurately represent today’s public, while also collectively portraying a lack of identity and sense of confusion. We’re confronted with a series of familiar scenarios that are thrown off by the “world of numbers.”
Credits
Client Meridian Matthew Seagrim, chief digital & marketing officer; Susan LeBlanc, VP marketing; Donovan Bond, director, creative; Genevieve Ross, project manager; Ghazal Taheri, director, brand; Rebecca Tsonis, sr. strategist, brand; Scott Dane, sr. manager, brand. Agency Elemental Scott Fess, creative director; Dustin Brown, partner, chief strategy officer; Lindsay Chase, sr. strategist. Production Company Impossible Studios Dan French, director; Marco D’Angelo, exec producer; Adrian Cheung, producer; Ben Cotgrove, DP. Production Service Company 247 x Radioaktivefilm Kate Galytska, exec producer; Tadas Vaitmonas, producer; Ieva Billionaite, Aukse Veitaite, production managers; Nerijus Narmontas, production designer; Mindaugas Smolkas, set decorator. Editorial School Editing Monica Remba, editor; Yumi Suyama, exec producer; Erica Giustiniani, editor assistant. Color Harbor Picture Company Alex Gregory, colorist; Charlie Morris, head of color. VFX Pinky Swear James Andrews, VFX artist; Airees Angellakis, producer. Audio Jungle Studios Luke Isom, audio engineer; Phoebe Baltazar, producer. VO Record Grayson Music
FactSet, a global financial digital platform and enterprise solutions provider, has partnered with Chicago-based creative agency VSA Partners to unveil a second round of spots in its “Not Just the Facts” campaign. The campaign originally launched back in April.
The campaign was built on a core strategic insight: While quality data is critical for financial professionals, facts in isolation provide little value. FactSet’s personalization, data connectivity, open and flexible technology, and dedicated service and support provide the context necessary for the investment community to turn facts into valuable insights--and make the most of them.
The new creative picks up where the previous left off. This time it focuses on a particularly boorish office worker, drolly played by character actor Wyndham Maxwell, who ticks off an encyclopedic list of facts and non sequiturs during business meetings and to the bemusement of his colleagues.
The tongue-in-cheek campaign, which plays more like a perfect-pitch comedy series than a typical B2B commercial effort, is a major departure from financial services industry norm--both in its use of humor and in its humanistic approach. Starting this week, FactSet will roll out 16 unique spots—a combination of :30s, :15s, :06s and nine “shorts”—across multiple channels including digital, streaming and CTV.
This :30, “Dinos,” has an office worker’s relevant reference to dinosaurs spark our boorish colleague who proceeds to utter one irrelevant fact after another about the prehistoric creatures.
The Los Angeles–based Docter Twins (Matthew and Jason Docter) directed the original campaign and this new humorous work through their production company, Thinking Machine. The identical twin... Read More
