MERIDIAN CREDIT UNION
Around Here: A Values Storytelling Series
Overview
Meridian is Ontario's largest credit union, but it competes with every other credit union and Canada's Big Five banks for each new member. Under their new CEO and a rebrand rooted in the fundamentals of cooperative banking, they made a different bet. Their real difference lives at the branch and community level. It's in the advisors who know members by name, who know their kids and their pets, and who have said yes because of that knowing, when other institutions would have said no.
The differentiation was in the people. So we leaned in that together to build a comprehensive member storytelling program.
Around Here is the program we built.
Each chapter pairs a genuine documentary about a member creating change in their community with a shorter companion film, the Meridian Connection, that gets into the financial relationship and how Meridian showed up.
The documentaries have earned festival selections and audiences on their own. The companion film does the consideration work, and earns the right to do it because the audience has already met the character. Supporting it is a story-finding system we built from scratch, surfacing members through surveys, employees, and unique institutional knowledge.
Four films are live, and two more are releasing in 2026. The series runs on Meridian's owned channels and YouTube, where the ten-minute documentaries are pulling completion rates more than double the platform benchmark.
They also extended into Meridian's first branded content hub on Roku, geo-targeted to Ontario audiences, and into launch screenings to bring members their communities into the same room.
The data has backed the bet. people will give their attention to stories that resonate.
High Level Results
+10.1 awareness
+4.8 favourability
+5.4 consideration
all above financial services benchmarks
The Challenge
Ontario's largest credit union has to compete for the same audience as Canada's Big Five banks. So the question we started with wasn't about reach. It was about what made Meridian unique, and how it could make people feel that the banks structurally cannot.
Their real differentiator lives in the relationships they build, the risks they take on people the banks won't touch, and the community roots that go back decades. Nearly 400,000 members, a cooperative model, and a genuine belief that people come before profit.
Member storytelling doesn't just happen. The system for finding the right people has to be in place before anyone picks up a camera.
Our Approach
We started with research, interviews, and a whole lot of listening. Our Field Work was designed to surface members whose lives had been genuinely shaped by their relationship with Meridian and whose stories would connect with the brand's target audiences.
One thing became clear early: Meridian team members would often go above and beyond to make sure they served their members well.
That insight mattered enormously for how we approach characters and what we asked of them. These weren't testimonials but people whose values were intertwined with the institution, and that changes what a storytelling program can actually reveal about them.
The Documentaries
Through dozens of interviews, we learned that finances play a small but pivotal role in people’s lives but it was the work they were doing that would really resonate. So we dug deep with the brand team, and flipped our whole initial approach to create two distinct films with two distinct purposes for each character.
The first is a documentary about who this person is and what they're building in the world. Meridian is present because it's true, and we treat it with the same restraint we'd apply to any element of the story. This is the film that earns festival selections, that travels independently, that someone with no connection to the brand would watch and find worth their time.
The second film tells the financial story specifically: how they found Meridian, what they needed, and how the credit union showed up. It does the consideration work, and it earns that conversation because the audience already knows and trusts the character.
Around Here runs on owned and operated channels, including a dedicated YouTube home, and was supported by Meridian's first branded content hub on Roku, geo-targeted to Ontario audiences.
To date, four films are live. Two more are in production and will release through 2026.
Foundations of Change
Rob Cikoja left his private construction business to lead Habitat for Humanity Huronia into a community that had stopped trusting the organization. He rebuilt the model and the trust together.
01
02
From Shame to Shine
Cher Obediah is an Indigenous filmmaker, author, and artist who built the courage to leave an abusive relationship through writing poetry. She’s now speaking and creating to inspire hope and change through her work. Make sure to look for her book of poetry, From Shame to Shine.
All Trails Led Here
Joanne Richter and Rob Garrard visited six lenders to fund a craft brewery in Uxbridge and got one yes. The Second Wedge has since survived a pandemic, a tornado, and personal health challenges to become the town's gathering space, farmers' market home, and live music venue.
03
04
Dignity at the Table
Ameriga Alonzo first came to 541 Eatery as a diner. Now she leads the pay-it-forward café that turned a Hamilton food desert into a neighbourhood table.
The Meridian Connection
Rob Cikoja
Cher Obediah
The Second Wedge
541 Eatery & Exchange
BTS
The Results
The Around Here series lives first on Meridian's owned channels and YouTube. That's the foundation. The Roku campaign came next, geo-targeted to Ontario audiences, and several films were supported by a film festival campaign, depending on the story.
Roku Campaign Results
Measurement Wave 2
+10.1 awareness
+4.8 favourability
+5.4 consideration
all above financial services benchmarks
Festival recognition
From Shame to Shine:
All Trails Led Here:
In-Person Premiere at The Second Wedge
What This Demonstrates
People don't trust financial institutions easily, and they shouldn't have to. Meridian's bet was that real member stories, told with honesty and craft, could lay the foundation for that trust before anyone walked through the door. The data from the Roku campaign confirmed it. The festival selections confirmed it in a different way. And the Around Here series keeps growing, with three more films in production.
+7.2
“a brand I can trust”
+10.4
“empowers people financially”
+9.9
“supports through life challenges”
+9.4
“understands real-life financial struggles”
Hear the Strategy Behind the Work
Scott Dane, Senior Manager of Brand Marketing at Meridian, joined the Content That Moves podcast to talk through the thinking: how the research behind Meridian's brand shift led to their first large-scale storytelling initiative, and why long-form documentary became their answer to competing with Canada's biggest banks.
Project:
Around Here
Client:
Meridian Credit Union
Distribution:
Roku Branded Hub (Ontario)
Owned Channels
YouTube
Status:
Ongoing — 4 films live, 2 scheduled for release
