The Fantastical Tells Young People Not to Freak Out About Money

By Patrick Coffee 

Today we learned a couple of things beyond the fact that many San Francisco residents don’t much care for Airbnb.

First, there’s a shop in Boston called The Fantastical, which is “a modernly defined Advertising Agency” led by Michael Ancevic and Steve Mietelski (and not the Tom Jones musical, dummy). The two, who worked together at Mullen and collectively held creative director positions at McCann, Hal Riney and TBWA, among others, founded the agency in 2012 and won some Travelocity work the following year.

Second, they have a new campaign promoting the Society of Grownups, which sounds like a series of YA novels but is, in fact, a project launched last year by MassMutual and the Boston design consultancy IDEO. It’s a group created to help young people better manage their money.

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The tagline is “You’re a Grownup Now…Don’t Panic,” and these digital spots stick to that theme.

First, one guy with lots of hair (who looks way too old to be playing this role, BTW) can’t quite deal with the fact that one house can have TWO whole garages side-by-side. Yes, he is the double rainbow dude. We are dumb.

We want some of what he’s on…or do we?

The next spot takes one particularly gross metaphor literally. Wait for it…

Here’s a classic stock character: the auctioneer!

If a guy needs a raise to make 25K…

Next comes a conundrum that agency folks might relate to: the unavoidable pains of aging.

There’s some more stuff on the site, including a spot that involves couples, money and spiders. The campaign will include both paid and unpaid sources, with the former including BuzzFeed, CNN Money and, of course, YouTube.

CCO/partner Mietelski says:

“Society of Grownups is reaching out to Millennials, so we needed to craft messaging that wasn’t only relevant and sharable, but moved at the speed of their social feed. This isn’t really a traditional campaign. We wanted each ‘panic moment’ to look and feel different because, in reality, you would freak out in a completely different way trying to negotiate a raise than you would buying a house.”

Director Paul Goodman of ModOp films adds, “You don’t expect this kind of comedic approach from the financial sector; it is bold and forward-thinking on the part of the client,” while the client’s marketing director Rhett Brackeen credits The Fantastical with helping their team avoid “the all-too-often process of missing the mark, revising, and resubmitting.”

Credits
Client: Society of Grownups
Agency: The Fantastical, Boston, MA
Chief Creative Officers: Michael Ancevic , Steve Mietelski
Creative Director: Kerry Downey
Art directors: Iona Holloway, Samantha Hodian.
Writers: Kerry Downey, Steve Mietelski, Talia Nutting, Talia Glickman-Simon
Executive Producer: Susan Poor
Account Director: Jenn Foster
Production Company: ModOp Films, Hollywood, CA
Director: Paul Goldman
Executive Producers: Rossi Cannon, Steve Schofield
Line Producer: Beth Pearson
Edit:Chandelier Films, Boston, MA
Editor: Christo Tsiaras
Post Supervisor: Glenn Chalek
Finishing: Edit Bar, Boston, MA
Color Correct & On-line: Charlie Coffou
Audio Mix: Aberrant Sound, Boston, MA
Engineer: Brian Sargent

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