Pension consolidation platform PensionBee is aiming to challenge outdated tropes with a new campaign that reframes retirement as the start of something to be excited about.
“Born to Retire” has been created by London agency Wildish & Co an invites consumers to imagine: “Who could you be with PensionBee.”
Running across TV in 30 and 10 second formats and Video on Demand, the new films are soundtracked by Steppenwolf’s 1968 anthem “Born to Be Wild” reworked by Brother Music, turning one of rock’s great odes to freedom into the campaign’s rallying cry and giving the platform its name.
It will be backed by out-of-home, digital display, radio, social edits and six-second YouTube bumpers, alongside PensionBee’s 18-month sponsorship of Channel 4 weather programming, with idents also created by Wildish & Co.
The campaign lands against a tougher financial backdrop. With living costs high, the State Pension age rising and Auto-Enrolment leaving out the self-employed, PensionBee wanted to make the case for saving early by showing what is at stake: the retirement people actually dream of.
Each spot opens on a younger person being told they are about to have a retirement revelation, before jumping forward to their older self, living out activities that are aspirational and accessible to a gleefully exaggerated scale. The dreams range from travelling the country by campervan and taking to the stage, to tending giant garden sculptures and baking oversized cakes.
PensionBee’s distinctive yellow is woven through every frame as an art direction thread rather than a logo slap: a mustard cable-knit jumper, a yellow kayak strapped to the roof, a yellow frosted cake.
With lines like “I’ve got more lives to live” carrying the message, the campaign aims to remind audiences that retirement is not the end of ambition.
Every scene traces back to something people actually said in consumer research. Travel and hobbies topped the list of retirement hopes, at 64% each, putting the campervan on the open road and the gardener beside a giant topiary.
Almost half (47%) wanted more sport and fitness in their lives, which is how a retiree ends up facing the rugby team. And with 49% hoping to spend more time with friends and family, the baking scene fills the kitchen with grandchildren.
PensionBee chief marketing officer Jasper Martens said: “Retirement is changing and the stereotypes should change with it. Today’s savers could have decades of retirement ahead of them, and we want them to see that time as full of possibility. ‘Born to Retire’ celebrates everything retirement can be and reminds people that the sooner they start saving, the bigger those possibilities become.”
Wildish & Co managing director Sam Fresco added: “The pensions category has spent decades selling the idea that retirement is a time to slow down, but we wanted to challenge those stereotypes and sell a future people would actually get excited about. Everything in these films came from real research into what people dream of doing with their time, we just turned the volume up. If a 30-year-old watches the campervan dream and thinks ‘that could be me’, the campaign has done its job.”
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