The world is getting older. Its stories have not caught up.
Creative work for a longer life.
Handle With Care is a creative studio focused on aging, longevity and the people reshaping what it means to grow older.
We work with brands, agencies and organizations to develop meaningful campaigns, films and stories that portray later life with honesty, relevance and humanity.
Older adults are too often portrayed through the same narrow vocabulary: decline, dependence, sentimentality or impossible youthfulness.
Real life is more interesting.
People continue to work, love, build, care, struggle, spend, change and begin again throughout their lives. The brands that understand this have an opportunity to speak to one of the largest and most influential audiences in the world.
Handle With Care helps them find the right story.
What We Do
Film and Content Production
We create commercials, documentary films, photography and campaign content grounded in real people and recognizable human behavior.
Our approach is cinematic, emotionally precise and never patronizing.
Creative Strategy
We help brands understand the emotional and cultural territory around aging, caregiving, health and longevity.
Our work includes brand positioning, creative audits, campaign territories, audience insight and narrative strategy.
Writing and Creative Development
We turn complex subjects into clear, human stories.
We develop campaign ideas, scripts, treatments, brand films, documentary concepts, interview structures and creative platforms.
Agency Partnerships
We work directly with agencies and internal creative teams as a specialist creative and production partner.
We can join at the beginning of a pitch, help shape an existing idea, write and develop a campaign, or take a project through production and delivery.
The film that sparked it all…
Gillette, Handle With Care
A father caring for his adult son. No actors. No conventional script. Just an intimate daily ritual, observed with honesty and respect.
The film became the emotional foundation of a groundbreaking Gillette product initiative and was recognized with seven Cannes Lions, four Gold Clios and an Emmy.
It also revealed something larger.
Stories about caregiving and aging did not need to be clinical, sentimental or inspirational by design. They could simply be human.
That film gave Handle With Care its name and its purpose.
“When you’re alone, you realize…”
At 98 years old, a Korean War veteran reflects on endurance, faith, and survival. From bitter cold nights to the silence of loss, he learned that strength is not the absence of fear but the persistence of hope.
“80 Something.”
Four women share the challenges, and wisdom of life past 80. Their voices remind us that aging is not an ending, but a gathering proof that friendship, humor, and resilience keep us alive in more ways than one.
“Dating at 70 is not the same as when you’re 20…”
His story reminds us that love and companionship don’t belong only to the young. Even later in life, opening your heart takes courage.
Our Perspective
Age is not a condition.
It is not a demographic shorthand. It is not a stock image. It is not a problem waiting to be solved. Aging contains ambition, humor, sexuality, grief, independence, reinvention, family, work, memory and contradiction.
Dignity without idealization.
We do not portray aging as tragedy.We also do not pretend it is effortless. We create work that respects the truth of the experience and the intelligence of the audience.
Emotion without manipulation.
Our work is intimate, but never sentimental for its own sake. We look for real behavior, lived detail and the small moments that allow an audience to recognize themselves.
Handle With Care works with companies and organizations across:
Healthcare and pharmaceuticals
Senior living and home care
AgeTech and aging-in-place innovation
Financial services and insurance
Travel and hospitality
Technology and consumer products
Foundations and advocacy organizations
Advertising and creative agencies
Whether the assignment is a national campaign, a documentary portrait, a brand platform or a single film, the objective is the same:
To make something true enough to matter.
Who We Work With
About Us
Handle With Care was founded by director and writer Rudi Schwab.
For more than three decades, Rudi has created emotionally driven films and commercials for leading global brands. His work has been recognized at Cannes, the Emmys, the Clios and throughout the international advertising industry.
His experience spans healthcare, caregiving, family, identity and the intimate human stories that conventional advertising often struggles to capture.
Handle With Care grew from a belief that aging deserves better creative work, and that brands can speak to older audiences without reducing them to age.
Contact
We partner with brands, agencies and organizations developing work around aging, caregiving, health, independence and longevity.
Tell us what you are working on.