Banking on History

Advertising is interesting from a historical perspective as the creative used in them tends to reflect societies at given point in time.

This rationale is behind an exhibition by the central bank in Finland detailing 100 years of bank advertising in the sparsely populated nordic nation.

The Bank of Finland, which opened a museum next door to its Helsinki head office in 2003, is running an exhibition tracing the transformation of Finnish society from a traditional agrarian model to one of modern consumerism.

The exhibition is open until September with the displays examined, burningpants-style, from a broader social perspective.

The outdated bank ads are symbols of the prevailing economic thinking in Finland, Europe’s most thinly spread nation in terms of its population with 5.3 million people spread over more than 330,000 km².

For many decades bank adverts in Finland have revolved around the core Finnish values of frugality and non-consumerism.

However given consumerism is a now global phenomenon bank adverts in the Scandinavian nation have been evolving over the past twenty years to reflect this shift in attitudes.

Meanwhile, the history of the Bank of Finland itself is especially interesting as it is the fourth oldest central bank in the world.

As for the exhibition. other activities include a software game that allows people (students) to test their skills as governor of the central bank and examples of what one markka could have got you 100 years ago.