Son Heung-min knows a thing or two about making a big switch. After a decade in the English Premier League, the global soccer star traded London for Los Angeles and Major League Soccer (MLS), beginning a new chapter in his career. Chime teamed up with Son for our "It Pays to Switch" campaign to show how the right change can move you forward — on the pitch, with your finances, and everywhere in between.
What's most surprising about a campaign of this scale is where it came from. "It Pays to Switch" was creatively conceived and developed entirely by Chime In-House, Chime's internal creative agency, from the first storyboard to casting to final delivery across channels.
That's a bigger deal than it sounds. Over the past several years, Chime In-House has transformed from an internal service desk into a strategic, full-service creative agency, owning concepting, production, and execution across the entire marketing funnel. Today, the team delivers more than 90% of Chime's creative internally, including national campaigns and television.
The "It Pays to Switch" spot shows what that model makes possible: Chime In-House developed the idea from the ground up with Son at the center of the insight and the scripts, while making the campaign about everyday Chime members making financial progress. To showcase this, Chime In-House cast trick soccer creators, DJ Diveny and Laura Biondo, and two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion Julie Ertz to play members and built the spot around how people earn cash back across different categories, keeping the storytelling grounded in real member experience.
"The thing I'm proudest of is that this didn't come from an outside agency - it came from our own team," said Ryan Brown, Chime's Head of Creative. "We had the insight, we had the talent, and we had the trust to build something at this scale from the ground up. Putting Son at the center while keeping the story rooted in real members is exactly the kind of work Chime In-House was built to do."
Chime In-House is a small, nimble team taking on work that typically requires an entire agency, with every discipline sitting together and pulling toward the same goal. This structure lets the team produce major work in a fraction of the time and review cycles compared to traditional processes, which often require dozens of people, months of post-production, and massive budgets. For this spot, Chime In-House leveraged AI storyboards to quickly map out the piece, key for getting the heavy choreography dialed in before filming.
But owning it in-house doesn't mean doing it alone. "It Pays to Switch" marks Chime In-House's fourth production with producing partner PaperNY, and the team tapped commercial director Blake Farber for his experience creating cinematic, energetic spots in the world of soccer.
The craft shows up in the details. For the campaign's textural b-roll, the team built a custom rig mounted to the camera to spin the soccer ball – a striking effect to see in person. And all the jerseys featured in the spot were designed in-house.
The campaign is also the latest chapter in Chime's multi-year relationship with MLS, our first league-wide sports partnership. As the Official Retail Banking, Credit Card, and Debit Card Partner of MLS and Presenting Partner of the MLS All-Star Game, we have built our presence across the league through national and local activations spanning games, athletes, fan experiences, and community programming.
"It Pays to Switch" is proof of where Chime In-House is headed: culture-driving, fully integrated work across channels that go beyond traditional advertising into social-first campaigns, experiential activations, branded entertainment, talent partnerships, and product storytelling, all built by the team under Chime's own roof.
