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A cinematic campaign created by Wonderhood Studios positions the investment firm as a steady presence through four decades of political and economic shifts

At a time when financial services brands are significantly increasing their TV advertising spend, Hargreaves Lansdown has launched its most ambitious campaign to date in a bid to stand out from the competition.

The cinematic, ‘one-shot’ launch film, directed by Tom Green through Stink, distils four decades of drama into a slick 60” package. Filmed between Greenwich and Gray’s Inn Road in central London, the action unfolds outside a recreation of the nation’s most famous address, 10 Downing Street, as a succession of leaders, policies and defining moments of both crisis and progress shape the country and its financial outlook.

From the birth of the internet and Cool Britannia to the credit crunch, Brexit and the pandemic (with a cameo from a Larry the cat look-alike), the film succinctly captures the everchanging, unpredictable nature of British politics. The point is that Hargreaves Lansdown has been a steady presence throughout: weathering every landmark speech, every snap election, every screeching U-turn, every sudden market shift.

For director Green, it was an opportunity to utilise in-camera tricks and transitions to move seamlessly through history. “My first thought was having a developing, propulsive camera that kind of inexorably moves forward and through the political years, fleetingly meeting characters along the way, but with just enough connection to them to create a strong sense of character and texture of the time,” he explains.

“I wanted the camera to dynamically find a new era all the time – so you’re in the 80s, then into the early 90s as the police officer takes you into the Poll Tax. I always wanted the new era to emerge at the end of the outgoing shot, so the camera became a kind of seamless time machine."