Close-Up: Live issue - Should banks' ad strategies change?(advertising)

Does humorous advertising have a place in the current economic climate, Caroline Lovell asks.

With the impending doom of the credit crunch, the Northern Rock fiasco, tumbling house prices and rocketing mortgage interest rates, the UK's financial health is no laughing matter. But despite this unstable climate, banks are continuing to use comedy in their advertising.

'Frivolous', 'ambulance-chasing' and 'undermining' are just some of the adjectives thrown around by industry commentators to slate recent bank ads, which often feature idiotic characters from the banking world in what are effectively comedy sketches.

Now, however, the Axa account is up for pitch and Halifax is reviewing its business, which is currently with Delaney Lund Knox Warren & Partners, after an eight-year stint with Howard and his singing colleagues. So does this mean that the big banks have realised that change is needed?

Industry experts are quick to dismiss a link between the credit crunch and the two financial services companies pitching their business, and instead place the blame on tired campaigns and relationship breakdowns.

Chris Blackhurst, the City editor of the Evening Standard, agrees with this, and believes that more mature advertising has to become the norm: 'Banks need to be more responsible and reassuring and less aggressive and direct in their ads. They need to explain more about what they stand for and who they are.'

It is a sentiment shared by Peter Gandolfi, the head of brand strategy at Nationwide, who argues that some banks will now have to reposition their advertising to be 'in tune' with consumers in the financial downturn.