Imagine renting forever. With the way house prices are going these days, it’s not unrealistic to think people could still be flatting when they’re headed towards retirement age. In this commercial we take a comical look in on what it’s like to still flat share in your senior years. But there is a way out: talk to Westpac about a range of options to get a mortgage and finally... a place of your own.

Casting a comedy ensemble piece for a conservative client is always a difficult task but add to that the challenge of finding the right characters in a very small country such as New Zealand and casting in the notoriously difficult age range of 60-70 and the task becomes almost insurmountable.

It was important that we found 6 characters that represented a range of archetypes familiar in a young flat share situations that were still believable and recognizable when transposed into an older age range. The audience needed to feel familiar with the characters and empathise with their share household plight.

Westpac is a conservative Bank in New Zealand and we had to convince them that while the cast was odd and in their words “unappealing and ugly” that this played into the concept behind the commercial and that ultimately the public would find them all so entertaining and amusing that the spot would not only be well liked but memorable.

Also key was to get the right tone through the casting process. A bunch of people arguing and shouting can quickly become annoying if the casting isn’t right. Our characters needed to be be likeable, engaging and above all funny as they engaged in domestic battle. Last but not least we needed performers capable of delivering the laughs while playing the scene straight and subtly and while never alluding to the comedy.