“A few months after this film screened for investors, Intermex was acquired by Western Union.”
I can't tell you the film is why it happened. But I can tell you the room cried.
Client: Intermex International Money Exchange
Location: Florida & Guatemala
Intermex came to me with three weeks until a major investor presentation and a plan: a 60-second commercial, split-screen, shot in New York City.
Trust fund kid on one side, immigrant worker on the other. Actors. Staged locations. The whole thing.
I told them it was the wrong idea.
Wrong both creatively and logistically. Hiring actors and locking locations in New York in three weeks at that budget? Good luck. But more importantly: you don't move a room full of investors with something that looks like a car insurance ad.
You move them by taking them somewhere they’ve never been, and opening their eyes to human stories that aren’t made up, scripted, or staged.
The real magic wasn't in a “concept”. It was in the life-stories of actual people who rely on Intermex every single day.
So instead of building something fake in New York, we flew to Florida and found real Intermex customers in orange groves, food trucks, and open-air markets.
We met and filmed over a dozen interviews, most of whom were with strangers that we simply cold approached.
The common story, including for folks like Jesus and Don Chewy (both pictured here), was this: they work hard in America, and send 70% of their weekly paycheck back to families they only see twice a year.
It was during day one, while hearing this message repeated over and over, that the storyline clicked for me:
Intermex doesn’t send wire transfers, it sends love.
Two days later, we flew to Guatemala & filmed the other half of the story.
The families on the receiving end. The small hotel in a mountain village that relies on Intermex to keep the lights on during the slow season. The woman whose small business in Antigua survives entirely because those transfers keep coming.
And of course, the young father who put it better than any script could:
"A remittance never goes without feeling. It goes with love. The effort of each person who sends these remittances is worth gold."
Because Intermex quickly green-lit the new direction & was so responsive during the editing process, we pulled it off in under three weeks.
The film ran nine minutes & screened at the investor meeting.
People cried.
A few months later, Western Union came calling.
This is what the right story does in the right room.
Additional Assets Delivered:
We also produced a series of short form social teasers designed to drive traffic to a landing page on the Intermex website-
capturing pixel data on new audiences while extending the film's reach beyond the boardroom.
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