Long-term brand building
How a fake bank led to real results for Santander.
11%
increase in retail customer loans
14%
increase in retail customer deposits
22%
increase in new mortgages
How we made a virtue of being simple, smart and sensible in a distinctive, ownable, and highly entertaining way.
Santander had entered the UK market as an innovative challenger, catapulting into the banking big leagues with a blockbuster product. But, by 2019, it had become just another big bank, talking to an audience that thought little and cared even less about banking.
In order to capture consumer attention and stay top of mind, we created a fictional rival bank, run by Britain’s favourite entertainers (and least competent bankers) Ant & Dec. This long-running campaign contrasts The Bank of Antandec’s idiotic innovations – such as a brick subscription service to help you get on the property ladder, or MC Hammer-style fraud-detecting “scammerpants” – with Santander’s simple, smart and sensible solutions.
We have used the campaign to sell mortgages and current accounts, to reduce losses to fraud and scams by 30%, and to prompt 100,000 teachers and 1.9 million children to use Santander’s educational content. An unashamedly daft idea has become one of the smartest bets they have ever made.
