Humans Jump Through So Many Hoops in Dystopian Nightmare

March is prime time for hoops, but this is ridiculous!

Channeling future-shock epics like 1984, Brave New World and Brazil, Toronto-based Tangerine Bank created an impressively maddening :90 that finds human dehumanized in a grey, sterile zone of tedium, bureaucracy and needless complexity.

People literally jump through hoops, constantly, in a broad metaphor for, well, jumping through hoops, if you catch our drift.

A grimly fab feast for the eyes! Of course, you’ll never run into unnecessary complications at a bank, right?

Actually, Tangerine does business exclusively online. Which should simplify the banking experience. (Do they play the ad’s “hoop, hoop, jump, jump” track for folks waiting on hold? That’d be a dystopian nightmare IRL. In the spot, however, the cloyingly repetitive earworm helps drive home the message.)

“Life’s complicated enough. Your banking shouldn’t be,” says Nicole German, CMO at Tangerine. “We wanted to get that point across in a simple way, and as we explored hoops, and what they represent, the campaign came to life. Our goal with ‘Hoops’ is to reignite Tangerine as the no-nonsense choice for customers.”

The team strove to “imagine an alternate version of our own world—one that looks as bureaucratic as ours feels,”  Brendan Scullion, associate creative director at Rethink, tells Muse. “It started with the idiom—and the thought: ‘What if every little unnecessary or frustrating step in a process was a literal hoop to jump through?'”

“The idea was dead simple,” he says. “The real power came in pushing that thought to its furthest logical extreme: What kind of world would replace steps with hoops? What would it feel like to live like that every day? How would it affect your mood, your commute, even your posture?”

Vapor Music composed the mind-numbing soundtrack. Mother-daughter duo Allyson Morris and Heather Avalon provide vocals.

“The music is a lot like the voice in your head, saying, ‘This is fine’—when what you’re going through is anything but fine. That insincere cheeriness brings out the bleakness of this hoop-filled-world more than a somber song ever could,” says Scullion.

And once again, director Nick Ball delivers sweeping, satirical visuals that seal the deal. Of late, he’s cemented his rep as a king of commercial quirk. Some highlights, all with edgy fantasy elements, include Ikea’s tale of a kid and his giant troll, Extra Gum’s kissy-face orgy of togetherness, and this belittling outing from QuickBooks.

CREDITS

Agency: Rethink
Global CCO: Aaron Starkman
Global CSO: Sean McDonald
CCO: Mike Dubrick
Creative Director: Randy Stein
Associate Creative Director / Art Director: Max Bingham
Associate Creative Director / Copywriter: Brendan Scullion
Group Strategy Director: Crystal Sales
Broadcast Producer: Lauren Sloan
Head of Broadcast Production: Steph Walker-Wells
Director of Broadcast Production: Nadya MacNeil

Production Company: OPC
Executive Producer: Isil Gilderdale
Line Producer: Max Brook
Director: Nick Ball
DoP: Daniel Landin

Editing Facility: Nimiopere
Editor: Graham Chisholm
Assistant Editor: Griffin Stobbs
Partner/Executive Producer: Julie Axell

Colour Facility: Colour Collective
Colourist: Alex Bickel
Executive Producer: Claudia Guevara 
Finishing Facility: Artjail 
Executive Producer: Bobbi Dedman

Artjail: 
VFX Supervisor/Creative Director/Partner: Steve Mottershead
Head of 2D/Partner: Andres Kirejew 
Head of 3D/Partner:  Gene Dresser 
Executive Producer: Bobbi Dedman 
Compositors: Andrew Thiessen, Alex Shahviri, Cory Johnson, Rob Del Ciancio            
Digital Matte Painter:  Bojan Zoric 
VFX Assistants: Ben Lee, Arash Shahabi

Sismica Studio (assistance on the :90)
CEO – Alex Pelayo 
COO / VFX Producer: Asdrúbal Rivera
VFX Producer / Productionoordinator – Hector Vargas 
VFX Supervisor / Compositing – Miquel de Hoyos 
Post-production Technical Supervisor – Oliver De Dante
3D Supervisor / Compositing – Jorge Granados 
3D Artist: Kevin Cruz 
Compositing: Cesar M. Romero, Ricardo Robles, Salvador Rodríguez , Oscar Basurto, Yael Márquez, Paulo Apodaca
Compositing Assistant; Jaylene Aine
Tools Development: Carlos Garcia 

Audio House: Stare Crazy
Producer (Audio House): Jonathan Dreyfus
Creative Director (Audio House): Jonathan Dreyfus
Engineer: Daniel Müller
Sound Design: Daniel Müller

90s Audio: 
Music and mixing: Vapor Music
Sound Design: Stare Crazy
Producer (Vapor): Kat Stewart
Creative Director (Vapor): Ted Rosnick

Strategy:
Senior Strategist: Derek Mollenhauer

Account Services: 
Group Business Lead: Amanda Dornan
Group Account Director: Scott Millson, Shar Khursigara
Account Director: Megan Christopher
Account Manager: Yuvan Duraibabu

French Adaptations: 
Writer: Karine Doucet
Producer: Edith Cayer

PR: 
PR Lead: Meredith Montgomery

Client: 
President & CEO: Gillian Riley
Chief Marketing Officer: Nicole German
Vice President, Head of Global Brand: John Rocco
Director of Brand: Brittany Wilson
Director, Head of Communications and ESG: Jaime Shulman 

Media: PHD Media
Director, Planning: Sara Wilkinson
Manager, Planning: Riley Dawson
Assistant, Planning: Zeynep Soydan