We have collaborated with Charles Schwab on 30 brand film projects since 2016. These films have been directed by our CEO and executive produced by the Schwab brand team. In the spring of 2019, the team approached us about the opportunity to capture an in-depth interview with founder and chairman Chuck Schwab. The company was preparing for the launch of Mr. Schwab’s upcoming book, “Invested: Changing Forever the Way Americans Invest.” May Day was created both as a trailer for the book and to demonstrate the brand values of the company at large. The plan for the project was for our CEO to interview Mr. Schwab at length at his office in the company’s San Francisco headquarters and to produce a brand film from the strongest story to emerge from that interview. May Day is the first brand film created from Mr. Schwab’s interview to date.

A career in documentary filmmaking has taught our CEO that everyone has a compelling story to tell. This flexible documentary mindset distinguishes us from other agencies in the brand space that operate under more conventional means such as storyboarding. Pairing our methods with Mr. Schwab’s rich personal life and successful business, the interview was sure to produce an abundance of film-worthy stories.

What emerged in this case was the fascinating story of May 1, 1975, now referred to as May Day, a pivotal moment in the history of the American stock market. The Supreme Court eliminated fixed rate commissions, challenging the reign of Wall Street giants and opening the world of trading to the everyman. May Day was an inflection point for the burgeoning investment firm of a young Chuck Schwab, whose commitment to serving individuals would soon skyrocket him to the top of his field.

The mission of ours is to crusade for the return of original and handmade filmmaking, to explore and evangelize the idiosyncratic power of the short, and to resurrect the creative studio campus pioneered in Hollywood in the 1930s. Our branded filmmaking is no exception to this ethos, and May Day was assembled with every ounce of care and passion that is dedicated to the studio’s original documentary work.

The film supports Schwab’s ongoing campaign to humanize the brand and bring the founder’s story to a whole new generation of people. The story was amplified through a multi-platform distribution strategy that included media partnerships with The New York Times, INC., Hulu and The Wall Street Journal. May Day was also promoted with assets optimized for LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter. This was part of a larger campaign that activated employees and customers across Schwab owned channels.

We launched production in June 2019 at Mr. Schwab's San Francisco office. Using a director-to-subject teleprompter for its signature direct eyeline interview, the team fulfilled Schwab’s goal of creating an emotional piece of storytelling that would resonate with the audience in a different way than traditional advertising methods. In post production, our team researched and licensed archival footage and photographs to bring the story of May Day to life. The film was finished in August 2019 with custom sound design, color grading, and an original score.

The Schwab team released May Day on YouTube in September 2019. Additionally, they promoted the film in paid content formats for deeper engagement including Hulu spots, placement on Inc.com’s Sponsored Hub, and Instagram Stories. The film was utilized across press interviews, client events, employee channels and other opportunities along Schwab's "Invested" memoir tour, creating more earned media and word-of-mouth syndication.

Not only was May Day viewed by 11 million people in two months, but surveys and panel research conducted as part of the campaign revealed that the film performed above benchmarks for several of Schwab's priority brand perception metrics. Favorability, innovation, trust and purchase consideration responses were all significantly higher for audiences who had watched the film. In fact, 52% of respondents wished there was an even longer documentary to watch.

While creating an emotional connection around Schwab’s brand purpose was the primary goal, the documentary also served as the perfect backdrop for the company’s announcement that it would be cutting online trading fees to $0 in the fall of 2019. Schwab returned to us to create a TV advertisement from May Day that ran nationally across all of the major networks and aired during the World Series, a major success for branded documentaries in the commercial space.