Don't Make Future You Hate You
The year is 2074. You pull on your vintage crocs, friendship bracelets, and lavender athleisure co-ord, and beam in to the corporate matrix. You should be retired and relaxing on one of Jupiter's moons, but instead you're still working at 103 because you made some bad money moves back in 2023. Luckily for (present) you, we figured out how to bend the fabric of time and space to beam back this musical from the future: finance smarter with NerdWallet today, and your Future You wont hate you. *jazz hands*
Client
NerdWallet
Role
ASSOC. Creative Director
Year
2024
Campaign Creative
There are a whole lot of people worried that they'll look back one day and wish they'd made different, smarter decisions about their money when they were younger. This campaign holds a mirror to this near-universal truth, but we kept it from getting grim through song; a cheery, original musical theater show tune, that rhymes, among other things, "credit card with rewards" with "fjords". This executional choice gave us permission to play with a tough love message that still brought the comedy.
We shot this as a full :60 song, made up of a few modular sections that could be sliced into :30s, :15s, and :06s. It was an intricate puzzle of lines and alt lines, not to mention the added complexity of musical performance, but alongside our team at Deutsch, legendary director Jim Jenkins and some excellently funny talent, we made it all sing (yes, that's Susan Berger/Barbara from Jury Duty! Alberto Isaac/Don Bondarley from I Think You Should Leave! Patricia Belcher/Cafeteria Lady from Community! My god).
Deliverables
:60, :30s, :15s, :06s TVC across Linear, OTT, YouTube, and Social; Campaign Toolkit; Radio and Podcast; Social (Reddit, Meta, TikTok, Owned Channels); Influencer Content; Brand Partnerships.
Impact
This campaign drove aided brand awareness to an all-time high, boosted brand search by 25%, increased familiarity against key brand attributes among our target audience, and earned some awards too:
Silver Winners:
🥈Use of Music in Advertising / Use of Music in Film & Video Advertising Craft / Songwriting
🥈Use of Music in Advertising / Use of Music in Film & Video Advertising / 61 seconds to Five Minutes
Shortlisted for Lyrics and Collaboration categories
CREDITS
NerdWallet Brand: Alison McCoy, Erin Albertson, DAYNA GARWACKI
NerdWallet Brand Studio: Rob Nikzad, Chloe Dalby, Emily Hsiao, Charlene Tsang, Christine Okazaki, Natalie Garnett, Justin Sanders, Morgan Eidson, Katie Booker, Max Gold
Agency: Deutsch; ECD RYAN LEHR, CD MAX POLLAK, CD CARLY BLITZ, AD ChaD CORBIN
Production Company: O Positive Films
Director: JIM JENKINS
EDITORIAL: WHITEHOUSE POST
VFX Studio: HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT
Color: TRAFIK
MUSIC: BUTTER MUSIC + SOUND
Sound MIX: Lime Studios