The Clearing House approachable experts campaign
Story: Community banks and credit unions had a real-time payments problem — and the one company positioned to solve it was the last one they trusted. The Clearing House (TCH) operates RTP®, the first and, at the time, only real-time payment rail in the United States. But TCH is owned by the nation's largest banks, and smaller institutions were skeptical that a Wall Street payments company had their interests at heart. Many were content to wait and see whether the Federal Reserve would eventually build a competing network rather than commit to a partner they didn't yet trust.
When TCH asked us to help, we saw the answer in the organization itself. Their product experts were among the most knowledgeable people in the payments industry, and they were genuinely willing to sit down with community banks and credit unions, answer hard questions, and advise them on the best path forward. The campaign didn't need to sell the product. It needed to make the experts the story — but carefully. Telling the world you employ the smartest people in the room is a short trip to chest-thumping if framed the wrong way.
So we developed a library of sophisticated, organic portraits that gave each expert individuality and warmth — a deliberate contrast to the corporate headshots that would have reinforced the Wall Street image TCH was working to move past. We wrote about each expert in the third person using dry, understated humor that signaled credibility without self-congratulation. The campaign ran on LinkedIn, in trade publications, and on signage throughout the payments conferences where TCH experts would actually be present, so the audience knew not just who the experts were, but when and where they could walk up and talk to them. An animated loop played continuously in the TCH conference booth, giving the campaign a living presence on the floor.
The industry responded. The campaign generated enough buzz that a media planner at a major payments trade publication referred a financial services client to us directly. Inside TCH, the work became a point of pride — over the life of the campaign we commissioned more than three dozen portraits. Best of all, four years after the campaign launched, 90% of institutions participating on the RTP network were community banks and credit unions — a reflection of the growing trust and momentum the campaign helped build within the market.
Services: Creative Strategy, Conceptual Development, Creative Direction, Art Direction, Copywriting, Layout, and Production Supervision
