MERCURY
The Context
A founder’s ambition may start a business, but with growth comes complexity. More people. More spending. More approvals. Before long, the flow of money can become the thing slowing a business down, making the founder the very bottleneck scaling is supposed to solve.
Mercury approached MATTE to turn this challenge into a new way of thinking: what if money were treated like any other essential material for building a business? Like clay. Like fabric. Like data. Together, we shaped a 360 campaign around the idea that when money is given shape, context and intelligence, it can flow where it’s needed, when it’s needed, so the work never has to wait.
The Approach
Guided by the central thesis, “Money is your material,” we built a 360 campaign that makes the idea tangible for founders navigating growth. The anthemic film, Give It Shape, uses water as a metaphor for money, moving from a flow that spills, stalls and loses direction to a current that moves fluidly with the business.
Concurrently, a series of Mercury Spend films turns the brand thesis into product proof, introducing Mercury’s new AI-powered spend management system and showing “money shaped to move” in practice.
Beyond film, the idea extends across OOH, stills and a flexible design toolkit, with a verbal language designed to make the messaging human, immediate and intuitive to adopt.
The Outcome
The campaign gives Mercury a distinctive way to express what intelligent banking makes possible, from anthemic brand storytelling to tangible product proof. Across live sports, streaming, cinema, in-flight entertainment and OOH, “Money is your material” carries that point of view to a wider business audience.






BUILT THROUGH CRAFT
Working with director Rune Milton and the production team at SMUGGLER, with post and VFX by Chemistry Film and music and sound design by Citizen Music, the films paired a deeply human, cinematic approach with moments of surrealism that amplified the very real pressures of building a business.
The characters and worlds were carefully researched and built around distinct companies and the people behind them, turning mounting approvals, bottlenecks and operational complexity into something founders could see, feel and recognize as their own.
From the texture of 35mm and the scale of real landscapes to the rhythm of the edit, voiceover, sound and score, we ensure every element of the films is treated as material to be shaped.

















Matte Partner
Matthew Rowean
Senior Client Director
Josh Kitts
Senior Project Manager
Sharon Lam
Head of Strategy
Ann Kim
Senior Strategist
Antonio Serros
Creative Director
Tanner Tananbaum
Visual Director
Pat Dierker
Design Director
Edward Shaughnessy
Designer
Sophia Almendral
Designer
Gabriel Braga
SVP Production
Thad Somoza
Senior Content Producer
Evelyn Ng
Agency Post Production
MATTE Finish
Senior Post Director
Michael Czeizinger
Additional Editor
Owen Walker
VFX and MGFX Artist
Stoker Kou
Editing Services
Little Chemist
Editor
Peter Brandt
Assistant Editor
Nikolaj Dahl
Offline Producer
Louise Ryge
Production Services
Smuggler
Director
Rune Milton
Line Producer
Natalie Jacobson
Director of Photography
Oliver Millar
Production Designer
Alexandra Bird
Wardrobe
Alex Price
Hair and Makeup
Makaira Dullabh
Local Production
Sparky Films
Local Managing Director
Marchant Bellingan
Local Producer
Diwan de Beer
Local Production Manager
Adali van Dalen
Drone Company
Skyhook
Drone Pilot
Ri-El De Jager
Drone Operator
Jadon Churchman
Additional Drone
Joshua Turner
Online Post-Production Services
Chemistry Film
Senior VFX Supervisor
Mikael Balle
Head of Production
Camilla Nilsson
Executive Producer
Lauren Loftus
VFX Producer
Emilie Lausch
Senior Compositors
Mario Maruska
Thomas Banner
3D artist
David Lessel
Guillermo Lazaro
Conform artist
Søren Knudsen
Colorist
Mikael Balle
Music & Sound Design
Citizen Music
Ways & Means
Media Strategy & Buying