When we were young, we believed we could: the film that reset the brand.
Case study 06 · CommBank · 2014–16
A pivotal moment for CommBank: the bank's first move from “you can” to “we can”. The shift sounds subtle. The creative ambition behind it wasn't.
One of the harder creative challenges in financial services: make people feel something. The TVC featured children inhabiting adult professional worlds, a SWAT team, a high-fashion editorial that could have been lifted from a Vogue shoot, a restaurant kitchen running at full pace.
The production quality was high enough that you had to look twice, and the emotional payoff of the final scene, an adult reflecting back on where the journey began, genuinely landed.
When we were young, we believed we could: the film that reset the brand.
Led the campaign from brief through to full integrated delivery, holding the creative ambition through every stage.
Full delivery across paid, owned and earned, keeping the craft standard consistent from hero film to the smallest placement.
Brand consideration moves slowly in financial services. This campaign moved it.
The craft was the strategy. Children playing adult roles with complete seriousness demanded production quality that made audiences look twice, and the campaign delivered it at every touchpoint.
The final scene carried the payoff: an adult reflecting back on where the journey began, turning a clever device into genuine feeling, and a tagline shift into a brand platform.
CommBank's first move toward a collective brand platform, delivered with the craft it demanded.