Alexis Monette

Alicia’s Story

TD BankBlack History Month 2025Portrait CampaignUWG Inc.

One portrait, one story, run deep. Instead of a Black History Month collage, TD Bank’s 2025 campaign put one story all the way through instead of a month of faces — an interview with the bank’s own head of social impact, and performers from Nia Centre for the Arts, the Toronto organization TD supports.

Creative Director. The strategic bet was singular rather than plural: one person, specific, unflattened, instead of a mosaic of faces standing in for a month. From there it was portrait direction on set, an interview built from a discussion guide written to draw out her own words, and the media build-out across 300×500 display, 728×90 banners, 4.75×8 and 8.5×11 print, from locked source with two caption versions.

The interview was designed as a toolkit asset, so TD could run it in internal communications as readily as external ones.

At a glance.

Award
Silver Telly · 2025
Social Video, CSR. UWG’s first cross-border campaign.
Shortlist
Shorty Impact finalist · 2025
Financial Services, with TD and Ogilvy Canada.
Client
TD Bank
Black History Month 2025.
Role
Creative Director
Campaign creative, the interview, media build.
Scope
Portrait campaign
One story run deep, instead of a BHM collage.
Interview
Alicia Rose
AVP of Social Impact, TD Bank.
Deliverables
Film, stills, campaign images, display + print
300×500, 728×90, 4.75×8, 8.5×11.
Agency
UWG Inc.
New York.

Completed February 2025

Posed and lit on the stage. The performers came from the centre — a dancer, and a poet who worked in movement.

Shot the same day, same stage, one source. The dancer is from Nia Centre for the Arts.

Owned the interview end to end — the discussion guide, the question structure, and the interview itself, which I conducted on set with Alicia Rose, TD’s AVP of Social Impact. That conversation is the campaign. Everything else is built on what she said in it.

The performers were not cast models. They came from Nia Centre for the Arts, the organization the programme funds, which is the whole argument the campaign is making — the money goes somewhere, and these are the people it reaches.

Worked with Kristin Smith-Clinton, UWG’s Head of Strategy, on the strategy behind the single-portrait bet, and set the campaign creative with her.

UWG

  • Alexis MonetteCreative Director
  • James “JT” ThigpenDirector + Art Director
  • Kristin Smith-ClintonStrategy
  • Whitney MichelChief Creative Officer