OPINION: Beale on ... Halifax.(advertising)

Halifax advertising always exercises the Campaign office. Few ads excite the level of anticipation of a new addition to the Halifax oeuvre.

Some of us think that the ads are palatable whimsy: funny, ridiculous, of course, but a nice change from the dull, pompous tone found elsewhere in the financial advertising mire.

Some of us think the Halifax ads are empty, pointless exercises in patronising schmaltz, get-that-shotgun irritating and an insult to anyone with an atom of financial acumen.

I love them. Whether you're a lover or a loather, these ads are deliciously painful to watch. There's something exhilarating in their sheer bloody-minded refusal to acknowledge taste. Clearly, Delaney Lund Knox Warren & Partners (for whom Halifax is something of a creative highlight) has no shame, no depth of cheesiness at which it demures in pursuit of standout for its bank. This is car-crash advertising. You don't want to look, know it will make your stomach flip. But you can't help yourself.

Of course, they make you think that Halifax customers are rather simple souls and I wouldn't want to be one. But there's clearly something rather comforting about the fact that scary financial services can be reduced down to little rhymes to the tune of - in the case of the latest execution - I am Sailing.

The ad opens in a Halifax back-office. Someone starts doing a Rod Stewart and soon they're all at it, Mexican waving as they bastardise Rod's classic: 'We are saving, we are saving, making waves like pioneers. Launched a rate that's extra great, so extra interest, every year.'

Then it gets all Gilliam-ish; the staff raise the sails and the office block sails off across choppy waters. Oh, and there's Howard doing a Titanic on the roof. And now all the staff are there in X-formation, ...