The Bank of Montreal is at it again with more advertising you wouldn’t expect from a bank.

A teaser campaign heralding something new – to the accompaniment of Bob Dylan’s 1960s anthem, The Times, They are a-Changin’ – started earlier this month.

The tv portion features 300 singing children walking through the countryside while the radio spot begins with, ‘If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of people casting off old chains.’

All work is from BoM agency Vickers & Benson Advertising of Toronto.

Joe Barbera, the bank’s senior manager of public affairs, says the teaser campaign is laying the foundation for some major announcements to be made Oct. 16. Advertising subsequent to the announcements will expand on the changing times theme.

Barbera says the new campaign builds on the bank’s two previous non-traditional advertising efforts, adding the much-parodied ‘Sign of the Times’ campaign, in which ordinary Canadians were shown holding signs expressing their concerns, had run its course.

BoM first broke out of the mold of doing conservative bank advertising in May 1994 with the launch of its ‘It is Possible’ campaign.