SHORT: What am I shilling here?

CREW MEMBER: Wealthsimple.

SHORT: And what do they do?

CREW MEMBER: It’s a financial…

SHORT: I’m kidding. I couldn’t care less.

It’s self-aware, top-of-funnel stuff that’s all about getting the name across and providing some quick entertainment. At that it succeeds, with Short chewing scenery in pompously prickly, persnickety style.

“It helps that Martin is Canadian, and about the closest thing to royalty they have in those parts,” Preacher creative director Zach Watkins tells Muse. “Obviously, he’s much loved, and having a well-deserved resurgence with Only Murders in the Building. But the main reason [the agency cast him] was his abundant enthusiasm for the project and generous time in collaborating on the script before shooting. He really was a mensch throughout.”

Short suggested many of the gags, and on set “his improv chops kicked in and some of our favorite moments were discovered on the fly,” Watkins recalls, praising Martin’s “instincts for filling up every moment with something special and walking that fine line between obnoxious and charming.”

Biscuit director Aaron Stoller, always aces with sitcom-style spots, imbues the project with a dose of manic energy. Ads broke this week across TV and social.

CREDITS

Client: Wealthsimple 
Chief Marketing Officer: Rubina Singh 
Advisor to CMO: Janet Xi
Editor in Chief: Devin Friedman
Art Director: Jacob Weinstein
Senior Manager (CW): Greg Bolton
Executive Producer: Greg Tharp
Senior Producer: Caroline Brisebois

Agency: Preacher 
Chief Creative Officer: Rob Baird
Chief Executive Officer: Krystle Loyland
Chief Strategy Officer: Seth Gaffney
Creative Director (CW): Zach Watkins
Creative Director (AD): Marcus Brown 
Senior Copywriter: Andrew Singleton
Senior Art Director: Mills Adams                    
Designer: Marissa Servantez
Brand Director: Vi Nguyen
Junior Brand Manager: Dom Shipp 
Head of Strategy: Marika Wiggan
Senior Producer: Lauren Bauder
Head of Production: Stacey Higgins
Business Affairs: Miiko Martin

Production Company: Biscuit 
Director: Aaron Stoller 
Managing Director: Shawn Lacy 
Executive Producer: Holly Vega 
Head of Production: Sean Moody 
Producer: Mala Vasan 
Director of Photography: Bryan Newman
Production Designer: Kristen Vallow 
Wardrobe Stylist: Dasha Martikainen 
Hair & Makeup Artist: Kathleen Beaton

Editorial: Mackcut
Editor: Pamela Petruski 
Assistant Editor: Brandon Alexander 
Executive Producer: Gina Pagano 
Assistant Producer: Kayla Robinson 

Finishing: Schmigital
Flame: Joseph Miller 

Sound Design: Marc Healy 
Mixer: Sam Shaffer 

Color Grade: Rare Medium
Colorist: Mikey Rossiter 
Assist Colorist: TJ Seiler
EP/MD: Heath Raymond 

Music: Mozart Sonata in D major for 2 pianos K448 II Andante

Celebrity Talent: Martin Short           
Co-writer: Matt Roberts

It’d be a shame to reduce this piece to a list of moments, because half of its impact is in taking the time to deduce what’s happening. Turning points, painful and promising, appear without context or closure. We’ll never know the sex of that baby, or whether that woman quit her job. 

It’s been said that money is worth only what we transform it into. Casually asked, we might imagine goods—a college education, a house, a yacht, an island. An endless litany of business books and self-help courses encourage us to be as specific as possible about what we want; how can the Law of Attraction work if we’re vague? 

But “Tomorrow Begins Today” leaves us uncertain of its characters’ fates, and only able to guess what motivates them. Those spaces are filled by our own projected hopes, expectations and feelings, and that’s the point. 

Sometimes our efforts pave the way for things we don’t dare say aloud or picture too clearly. We want to be open enough to welcome the future without jinxing it, and hopefully our hopes aren’t forsaken in the process.

Unquantified desires can be the most potent ones we have, the unique solution for X that machine learning can’t find. This leads us to the last unexpressed message in the work: that Wealthsimple, a robo advisory, is more than an algorithm. The real whisper between these lines is, “There are people back here.”

CREDITS

Agency: Wealthsimple In-House
Executive Creative Director: Mike Giepert
Chief Product & Marketing Officer: Rudy Adler
Art Director: Jacob Weinstein
Copywriter: Thalia Forbes

Production Supervision: Hone
Broadcast Producer: Greg Tharp, Hone Production

Director of Production: Sharman Ordoyne

Production Company: Iconoclast
Director: Jonathan Alric
Director of Photography: Hoyte van Hoytema
Line Producer: Magali Selosse

Editor: Biff Butler, Rock Paper Scissors
Post producer: Lisa Barnable
Colorist: Tom Poole, Company 3
Music: Heaven by The Blaze; Tomorrow Anthem by Jacob Adler
Sound Designer: Phil Loeb, Heard City
Conform: Edward Reina, Rock Paper Scissors