Innovative and purely digital, Varo Bank was created for the millions of Americans who feel let down by traditional banks. The bank gives people access to products and services that they actually need and that help them, as money should work for all people, not just some, according to the company’s slogan “A bank for all of us”. The out-of-home advertising visualises the diversity of communities on the ultimate symbol for money – the banknote – itself. Therefore, the $20 note depicting the face of controversial President Andrew Jackson was redesigned to show the likenesses of a range of Americans looking at the viewer with a variety of different facial expressions. With this diversity, the banknotes aimed to take an important step towards financial inclusion, underlining and representing Varo’s support for the proposal to put black women’s rights activist Harriet Tubman on the $20 note. In this way, the media touchpoints democratized the $20 note and associated that cause with the Varo brand.
Statement by the Jury
This campaign stands out for its social impetus by creating a mechanism through which anyone can become a head on the $20 note. This concept for a financial institution that wants to be a bank for everyone is simply ingenious. People had fun posting themselves on the banknote with their transformed faces and thus, at the same time, became part of a larger community and implicitly aware of the benefits of this bank.
Credits
Client:
Varo Money Inc., San Francisco, USA
Design:
Serviceplan Germany, Munich, Germany
Project Team:
Serviceplan Group: Stefan Schütte (CEO)
Alex Schill (Global Chief Creative Officer)
Jason Romeyko (Global Executive Creative Officer)
Michael Wilk (Global Head of Art)
Maximilian Schöngen (Global Creative Strategist)
Serviceplan Germany: Paul Foulkes (Art Director/Creative Director)
Matt Ashworth (Writer/Creative Director)
Dennis Fritz (Head of Film)
Kevin Lausen (DOP) Sain’t Elmos: Kevin Prösel (Managing Director)
