Responses by Matt Cavallo, art director; and Jeremy Seibold, creative director and partner, TDA_Boulder.
Background: As fintech companies rise and consumer banking becomes more commoditized, FirstBank is shifting its focus to acquiring more customers who own mid- to large-sized businesses. These customers have put everything into their businesses, and they need a bank that is equally invested in their success. Business owners need to rely on their bank for support, swift solutions, actionable advice and help understanding the nuances of business finance, security and commercial real estate.
Design thinking: Human interaction is essential to business owners, yet we live in a world where it’s being replaced and its value is disappearing. FirstBank is here to provide both the technology business owners need and, more importantly, its best asset as a bank—the humans that people want.
Challenges: Finding the balance that proves FirstBank is tech-forward but also has the charm and humanity of real people. Execution-wise, we needed to nail the tech genre: the initial misdirect needed to lead viewers to believe they’re watching a new smartphone release. On the contrary, we had to make sure our bankers assumed the role of real people with real personalities. These FirstBank employees are dropped in this technology domain, yet feel out of place because they are warm, genuine people at their core.
Favorite details: The juxtaposition of the work in general. FirstBank isn’t opposed to new technology: it embraces it. But at the end of the day, it knows that real people run and work at these businesses, and those people deserve the intellect, compassion and humanity that can only be brought by, well, real humans. Even though our bankers posed as technology, their subtle deliveries and individual personalities shine through.
Visual influences: We drew inspiration from the goliath tech brands like Samsung and Apple that annual drop the “next big thing.” How could we mock the technology genre in a visually stunning but charming way? By objectifying our bankers as the newest technology to hit the banking realm, we were able to achieve the look and feel of a new smartphone drop.
Time constraints: Time is always a factor, but here, more so than usual. In order to mimic the technology space, we needed to make sure the structure was the same. Ryan Ebner, our partner and director from ArtClass Content, helped get us to that point. By allowing ourselves the time in the first half of the spot to really lean into the tech world, we achieved the grand suspension of a product launch. We needed to make sure the notion of human bankers still came through in the short amount of time after that build up. Luckily, all it takes is a quirky mannerism, question or remark from our bankers to prove that they are, in fact, real people and not products.
Specific project demands: This production required a lot of imagination and trust. Not all clients are comfortable with that, but FirstBank is a great client. A lot of the imagination required was because of Ryan, our outstanding director. He is a longtime partner and friend of the agency, and as always, he found a way to make our original idea stronger.
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