Ad Break#7 Nationwide – Friends, Family and Heritage

It’s been around for a while now but one of my favourite adverts is not some hilarious joke fest or epic filmic production but a simple spoken word scene in a photo booth. And I was surprised to discover what is at the heart of a campaign that is far from conventional in its approach. I’m not totally sure it works from the point of view of promoting the company it’s supposed to but I’m glad they’re making them! I’m talking about Nationwide and their series of ads featuring poetry and spoken word narratives. These have elicited a mixed response from some people who find them irritating but they have been running for a while now and I always pay attention to them which says something. The best known one is last year’s Mother’s Day advert, more on which later. This one called `Pals` features a couple in the booth listing the things about the other owns or does. And at the end they pull silly faces when the reassuringly crunchy sounding camera flash goes off. It makes you instantly think you’d like to know these people. Whether it makes you hot foot it to your nearest Nationwide branch is another matter! Here it is…