category finalist
masha@transportnewyork.com
In 1918, TIAA was founded to ensure guaranteed lifetime income—and the dignified retirements that come with it—for American educators. A breakthrough pension experiment nearly twenty years ahead of Social Security, TIAA grew throughout the 20th century into the unquestioned provider of retirement plans for nonprofit organizations in higher education, healthcare, and local government.
But 100 years later, it had begun to stagnate, buffeted by legislative and regulatory change and surrounded by new competitors and industry norms. The brand had lost its way. New executive leadership now needed to make the case not for a refresh, but a true re-founding of the company. The Boards of Directors and Trustees would need to be convinced to choose transformation over incrementalism, and 16,000 employees would need to rally around a shared sense of purpose. To inspire the courage of conviction in all of them, we were asked to make a short film humanizing the American retirement crisis.
We needed a singular storytelling approach—one that could seamlessly move between intimate, individual experiences and a collective, cultural portrait. The solution? An open letter to the country we all share, read by a diverse cast of real people. Addressed to the nation and signed by that same nation, the “Dear America” device would cohere each individual story into a kind of Greek chorus calling out for change.
In the end, our open letter idea brought the problem statement to life, but without imposing sadness or defeat on our cast of real-world retirement savers.
“Dear America” was first shown to internal TIAA audiences in late 2022 and early 2023. It became such a touchstone in TIAA’s brand transformation that it continued to be screened and talked about for the next two and a half years. Across the enterprise, it spurred teams onward when the hard work of changing course temporarily laid them low, and helped them align on new positioning, new external communications, and new standards for what video could accomplish with their audiences.
Having lived these impacts internally, in 2025 TIAA leaders decided the time had come to screen the film publicly. At the inaugural Futurewise, a marquee thought leadership experience at Washington DC’s Union Station, “Dear America” set the stage. As employers, industry leaders and experts, state and federal policymakers began their day of grappling with the future of retirement, our film reminded them of the challenges to solve for—and the stakes for getting it right.
