MEDIA: STRATEGY OF THE WEEK - FIRST DIRECT. First Direct has flattered its existing customers to lure new ones, Glen Mutel writes.

Earlier this year, First Direct decided to entrust the fate of its brand to its customers, with a series of TV ads featuring the unscripted testimonies of the satisfied.

This week, the branchless bank will revisit this strategy with two new TV executions from WCRS. However, First Direct has also decided to venture beyond TV and is about to launch the biggest outdoor campaign in its history.

The company's media agency, PHD, has bought 216 96-sheet poster sites through the outdoor specialist Outdoor Connections. They will be on view across London, in locations such as the North Circular Road. First Direct expects the posters, 75 per cent of which will be illuminated, to achieve 56.2 million impacts during their run.

Although there is an obvious reason to launch a large-scale outdoor initiative as the country tries to make the most of the final few weeks of summer, there is also a cynical reason for the campaign.

'Basically, PHD got us an extremely good deal in, what is at the moment, a soft market,' Matthew Higgins, First Direct's head of brand planning, says.

The posters, created by Story, promote First Direct's Offset Mortgage product. The minimalist executions feature a single sentence which urges the public to 'join the better off set' before asking them 'how much are you worth?'.

The TV campaign, which went live on Monday with the first ad shown during Coronation Street, looks to reach customers in more regions than previous First Direct TV initiatives. Jo Ingram, the PHD media group manager, says: 'PHD built a propensity model which tracked the TV uplift in response and mapped it.'