Swedbank's Candid Creature Comforts

Stockholm agency Lowe Brindfors has released its latest collaboration with animation studio Aardman for Swedbank. The ads build on previous creative which explores the ‘world under the oak tree’, a universe developed from Swedbank’s logo. This time though, the anthropomorphic animal characters have been given a rather more candid voice.

 

“The bank has been around for 200 years and their logo is an oak tree. We decided to create our little world under the oak tree and let the animal characters play the part of our customers. When we started, we concentrated on launching this world and talking about the bank and its values but now it’s time to show the characters. The bank wanted to show that they are listening to customers and that they are engaged with the Swedish community.”

 

Two spots have been released and several more are set to follow in autumn, and they deal with initiatives designed to help young people and immigrants struggling in the current Swedish jobs market. In order to bring a slice of reality to the campaign, the agency interviewed members of the public about their opinions on the economy. These were then sent over to Aardman who put the most interesting exerpts into the mouths of the animal characters.

 

Hearing people speak so frankly, did anything surprise Rickard and his team? “Yes, but also no. It’s usually all about common sense. People care about the same things: honesty, fairness and not being tricked. When you talk to people they have really strong opinions about what’s right and wrong.”

 

The most recent outing is just the latest in what has been a successful collaboration between Lowe Brindfors and UK animation house Aardman. “We had a big pitch when we developed this ‘world under the oak tree’ and we invited a lot of big production companies to send in treatments. Straight away I felt that Aardman had a genuine passion to do all the animation for real and in-camera. The idea itself is a good one but without Aardman it wouldn’t be the same. The crew there are like part of the creative team – if we have an idea we send it over and shoot it back and forth.”

 

According to Rickard, the use of animation for a banking brand is still fairly unusual in Sweden. “In Sweden it’s quite uncommon to use animation in this way and for Swedbank, the biggest bank in the country, to do this I think it stands out. It’s been very successful here and that’s meant that we don’t need to buy as much media to make a big impact.”