Vestboard
Tonia Lachotzki
The Creative Challenge
Vestboard was a particularly challenging project because the founder thinks very analytically. He understands the product through data, logic, systems, process and matching behaviour.
The challenge was translating that internal understanding into something tangible enough for another person to immediately grasp, not only intellectually, but emotionally.
I did not want to create a software demonstration. The product could have been explained through screens, dashboards and feature walkthroughs, but that would have shown how the platform works without necessarily helping the audience feel why it matters.
The creative task was therefore to take something highly analytical and turn it into a recognisable human experience.
The Human Problem
The story began with a very simple real-world truth: in institutional investment, people hear “no”.
“Not allocating right now.”
“Not part of our mandate.”
“Maybe later.”
Those moments carry frustration. A conversation has taken place. Time has been invested. Information has been exchanged. And then the opportunity appears to disappear.
I wanted the audience to feel that moment rather than simply be told about it.
Executive at the trading desk
Directing the Emotion
The emotional details mattered: the tightening of a hand around a pen, a facial expression changing after a rejection, the pause after hearing “no”, and the frustration of another conversation seemingly going nowhere.
Those details were deliberately directed into the film because they make the business problem recognisable.
There were moments during the AI production process where the generated performances naturally wanted to become more neutral or restrained. I pushed in the opposite direction. I wanted believable emotion because frustration is part of the real experience this product exists to solve.
The goal was not melodrama. It was recognition.
New Demand Signal executive
The Creative Idea
Instead of explaining Vestboard as software, I wrote the film around the life of a piece of information.
A conversation happens. The answer is “no”. But the information inside that conversation does not disappear.
Vestboard captures the signal. That signal remains useful. Elsewhere, another professional has a complementary need or opportunity. The information begins to connect.
What initially looked like a failed conversation becomes the beginning of another opportunity.
By following that journey, the audience experiences the product rather than receiving a feature demonstration.
Global network connection visual
The Script
I developed the script around someone actually living through the problem. The film moves through conversations, reactions, captured signals and eventual connection.
The audience first sees the frustration. Only then do they see the technology. This was deliberate. The product becomes the answer to a problem the viewer already understands.
Making the World Feel Real
Another important part of the creative direction was credibility.
Vestboard speaks to a very specific institutional financial audience. The visual references therefore needed to feel familiar to that world.
We used real-world references wherever possible: institutional boardrooms, trading environments, investment conversations, international financial settings, professional dress, the language used by allocators and intermediaries, credible investment terminology, and restrained interface design.
The purpose was not simply visual realism. It was recognition. The target audience needed to look at the film and feel that it belonged to their world.
The Language
The language was treated with the same care as the visuals.
Rather than using generic advertising language, the dialogue and on-screen information reflected how professionals in this space actually communicate. Terms around allocation, mandates, strategies, regions and timing were used to ground the story in the reality of institutional investment.
That specificity was important because the film was not designed for everybody. It was designed to catch the attention of a very particular audience.
The Product
Only after establishing the human problem does the product enter the story.
Vestboard captures useful investor signals, structures that information and helps identify relevant overlap. The platform makes previously disconnected information actionable.
Vestboard website proposition
The live product screens included in this case study show the underlying logic:
Capture demand
Respond to demand
Identify overlap
Create the possibility of a trusted introduction
Capture demand or respond to it
For confidentiality, the dashboard shown publicly has been sanitised and uses demonstration data rather than live investment information.
Sanitised dashboard using demonstration data
The Human Payoff
The film ends with people, not software. That decision was intentional.
Vestboard exists within a relationship-driven world. The technology is valuable because of what it allows people to do with information that would otherwise have been lost.
The final meeting represents the payoff: information becomes relevance, relevance becomes a reason to speak, and a conversation that once looked finished leads somewhere new.
Two executives meeting at a restaurant
The Result
The project turned a highly analytical fintech proposition into a human story.
Instead of asking the audience to understand a system first, the film begins with an experience they already recognise: frustration, a “no”, a missed opportunity. Then it shows how Vestboard changes what happens next.
The film became a way of making an invisible process visible and giving a complex product a human emotional logic.
Final Thought
The most important creative decision was simple:
Do not demonstrate the software first.
Make the audience feel the problem first.
Then let the product become the answer.
The Board, By Invitation Only
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Posted Aug 8, 2026
A complex fintech proposition was transformed into a clear, human story that made Vestboard’s value easier to understand and more emotionally relatable.
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Timeline
Jul 2, 2026 - Jul 9, 2026
Clients
Vestboard
