Cobox | The Unloan Refinance Classic | Finder x Unloan

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The Unloan Refinance Classic

Unloan x Finder

Most financial products don't sell themselves. They sell with a calculator, a comparison table, and a quiet hope that someone's bored enough to read the fine print. The Unloan Refinance Classic does the opposite. Three episodes. Three game show challenges. Three completely different ways to talk about refinancing a home loan without ever sounding like you're talking about refinancing a home loan.

The project came together as a collaboration between Finder and Unloan, with creative and production led by One3six, the direct response and brand response specialists who've been the creative engine behind Finder's TV work for the better part of a decade. The brief was clear. Unloan, the digital-first home loan offering from CommBank, needed a way to introduce its products to a younger, more sceptical audience on YouTube. Not with a 30sece TVC and a rate card. With something that earned the watch. The answer was to lean entirely into the format the audience was already there for. Branded entertainment, but actually entertaining. A three-part competition series called ‘The Unloan Refinance Classic.’

Each episode took a different turn at the same idea. Putt Pocket, a precision putting challenge where contestants are quite literally trying to pocket savings. Refi 2 Reno, a five-minute Lego renovation race that turns the whole concept of refinancing your home into something you can hold in your hands. Race 2 Refi, an obstacle course built around every high and low of the refinancing process, where the prize at the end is, well, exactly what you'd expect. The Unloan product features were woven through every challenge as plot mechanics rather than callouts. Lower rates as a power-up. No fees as a clear lane on the course. The campaign treated information as gameplay, not as homework.

It's the kind of work that lives or dies on tone. Push the game show energy too hard and the product disappears under the costume. Play the financial product too straight and the whole conceit collapses. Aaron Schereck led the creative direction with the kind of instinct you only build from twenty-plus years of direct response work, knowing exactly where the product story needs to land inside the entertainment. CoBox came on board with Aaron Petersen co-directing, working alongside Schereck on set across all three episodes. Petersen also stepped in as Director of Photography, shooting the series with a look that holds its own against any high-end YouTube production while keeping the bright, playful palette the format demanded.

There's a particular kind of craft involved in shooting a competition format. The pace has to feel alive in-camera so the edit isn't left papering over a flat shoot. That meant covering the contestant reactions as well as the action, finding the small human moments inside what's structurally a sales asset, and shooting product beats that could carry their weight without ever stopping the show. Working with the broader Finder and One3six production teams, the shoot moved across multiple builds, multiple challenges, and the usual game-show wrangle of contestants, props, set decoration and timing.

Post-production was managed by CoBox, where Aaron Petersen took the edit and shaped the rhythm of all three episodes - working through grade, sound design, music, graphics integration and final delivery with the CoBox Collective team. Game-show edits are deceptively hard. The cuts need to feel kinetic without losing the gag, and the product moments need to integrate without flagging themselves as ad breaks. The series cuts cleanly between competition, comedy and clarity on the product, and that's the post-production job in a sentence.

The three episodes rolled out on YouTube, sitting inside Finder's content ecosystem and Unloan's broader awareness push. For a category that usually defaults to interest rate graphics and slow-pan kitchen shots, The Unloan Refinance Classic does something genuinely different. It treats the audience as an audience, not as a lead. And it makes the case for refinancing the only way that actually works on YouTube. By being worth watching first, and a brand campaign second.

For CoBox, the project was a chance to do what the collective model is built for. Stepping into an established creative relationship between two trusted partners, bringing co-direction, cinematography and full post into one team, and letting the work speak louder than the credit list.

Creative Agency :One3six

Director :Aaron Schereck

Director & Shooter :Aaron Petersen

Editor :Aaron Petersen