“Real Deal” Commercial Series

Meridian Trust approached Chartwell Agency to develop a series of television commercials that would leverage a lighter note, departing from the emotional tone of its current commercials, to stand out in a crowded marketplace for financial services.

Having developed Meridian Trust’s previous commercials, Chartwell Agency had a deep understanding of the client and was able to get to work right away brainstorming ideas for the project. The firm presented several concepts and Meridian Trust selected “The Real Deal,” a concept that leans into popular reality television “moments” to tell the credit union story.

All commercials take a nod to their inspiration show, but close with the same ending tagline, “Meridian Trust is the Real Deal.” Chartwell Agency presented several reality show options and Meridian Trust selected reality shows, “The Bachelorette” and the “The Great American Baking Show” as the initial commercials in a series that can expand over time.

• In the “Bachelorette” commercial, the bachelorette must evaluate the qualities of several institutions before presenting the final rose to her “forever credit union.”
• In “The Great American Baking Show” spot, two expert bakers go head-to-head in a baking skills competition to determine which cake exceeds expectations and best serves its audience.

Throughout the series, there is a consistent reference back to the Meridian Trust brand. The bachelorette ad reflected the Meridian Trust gold and blue brand colors in the dresses; in the baking show ad, the judges’ tasting table is dressed in the same brand colors.

In addition to concepting, the firm managed all other pre-production aspects of the project including storyboarding, scripting, copywriting, location scouting, casting, props, and other logistics.

The Chartwell production team managed the video shoots to capture appropriate footage. The firm supplied an onsite producer, videographer, lighting grip, sound engineer and art director to ensure all video captured provided options for all formats and told the story presented in the storyboards and scripts.

Chartwell’s creative services team then pulled the final piece together with digital editing, motion graphics, text overlay and voice over. This work included a reality show title lockup leveraging the Meridian Trust logo.

The final “Bachelorette” commercial was finished in time for Superbowl LVII placements; “The Great American Baking Show” was the second spot in the series and began running in the summer of 2023. All spots were used in both broadcast and social applications.