Taking steps towards equality

In 2019, Oslo agency Try’s campaign for the bank created a stir by repurposing Beyoncé’s hit, Run the World . 

The spot featured a chorus of male dancers (instead of Bey’s female crew in the original 2011 video) and the word “girls” was stripped out as a repost to the question of who is running the show. 

Highlighting the gender wealth gap, it responded to sobering stats such as 80 percent of private stock in Norway is owned by men. 

This year Try continues the conversation with another compelling spot, titled Change, that encourages women to invest more in pensions. Directed by Philippe Tempelman and produced by new Swedish company PINE, it features a posse of female dancers from Canada, Ukraine, UK, US and Germany storming the barricades of the patriarchy with dynamic choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.

Set to Monument by Röyksopp and Robyn, it begins with a woman on a bus spotting a billboard announcing the dispiriting statistic that men receive 28 per cent more pension than women. Alighting from the bus she gazes up at a suitably phallic office block symbolising male dominance. As her anger mounts, she begins her protest march to topple the tower and – joined along the way by various high-stepping sisters – leads a cavorting crew as they break in, bounce all over the boardroom and generally create a gleeful amount of havoc.

Along with some remarkable dancing feat, the ad pulls off the not inconsiderable feat of making pensions interesting.