Ancient wisdom reveals we’re not so wise.

Why are we so bad at planning for the future? Because our brains haven’t evolved much past those of our ancient ancestors. That’s what behavioral economics and evolutionary psychologists like Dan Gilbert teach us - we’re prone to a wide variety of irrational behaviors when facing a distant future our ancestors never had to plan for.

The Prudential Challenge Lab sought to teach Americans this important lesson in fun and engaging ways. It was grounded in a series of real-world events and experiments to demonstrate these behavioral glitches. This content could travel freely and inform TV (not the other way around.) And this content could become the backbone of Prudential's entire brand, from internal comms to B2B sales efforts, across 401(k) plans, annuities, life insurance, and long-term investing.

What is ancient is often unconscious.

Here’s a documentary that was one of several in the campaign. Our strategy team structured, cast, and helped direct and edit it, because it's impossible to do long-form content without a solid long-form strategy.

And, yes, we did hypnotize a bunch of young people, ask them to imagine having a relationship with their future-selves, and have them paint what they experienced while in a trance state.

Kids are clear windows into human nature.

In this cute remake of a classic “Marshmallow’ impulse control experiment, we shot agency kids struggling with the timeless human challenge - delayed gratification.