The global debt system is not fair
While debt relief is often framed as aid, the reality is far more exploitative. Private lenders can charge low-income countries vastly higher interest rates than wealthier nations, with far fewer protections. When repayments become impossible, countries are forced to cut spending on public services or borrow even more, deepening inequality and delaying recovery.
This campaign film set out to make that imbalance impossible to ignore.
Using humour to tell a serious truth
To reach beyond policy circles, we leaned into satire. Casting actor Alex Macqueen as a smooth-talking loan salesman, the film mirrors the language, tone and visual style of early-2000s daytime TV adverts. Friendly smiles, reassuring promises and corporate polish mask a predatory reality, exposing the absurdity of a system that sells financial ruin as support.
Campaign films like this are designed to translate complex systems into something people can quickly recognise and respond to. By borrowing the visual language of everyday advertising, the film makes an abstract global issue feel immediate, understandable and shareable - helping move it out of policy circles and into public conversation.
Telling a complex story, simply
Set within a pristine white infinity studio, the film unfolds as a single sales pitch that gradually unravels. Animated graphics undercut the salesman’s message, revealing what is really being sold.
Intercut with the presenter is the “friendly face” of customer care. An efficient, polished assistant whose warmth makes the exploitation feel almost reasonable. Together, they reflect the machinery of modern finance, personable on the surface and ruthless underneath.
As the pace quickens and the smiles linger a little too long, the film tips from reassuring to disturbing. It lands on a clear call to action that names the real-world consequences behind the joke.
Making the invisible visible
To bring the film to life, we embraced a deliberately tacky, early-2000s commercial aesthetic. From wardrobe to graphics, every creative choice was designed to feel uncomfortably familiar, reinforcing just how normalised this exploitation has become.
By turning global debt into something viewers instantly recognise, Meet The World’s Loan Sharks aims to spark public pressure for change. The film directs audiences to unfairloans.com, where they can learn more about the issue and support calls for fairer debt relief ahead of the G20 summit.
Sometimes the fastest way to understand injustice is not through data or policy, but by holding up a mirror and letting the absurdity speak for itself.
