Investec give a damn

South Africa is home to some very strong banking brands.

As far as memory serves, all of them are pretty much to be found in the annual Top 10 strongest brands list; the arena therefore, is bloody.

So when one of the big ones re-enters stage left with a slightly new 'tagline' / 'positioning' / 'campaign objective' / 'brand thingy' - we obviously nestle ourselves in the comfy seat, in the far corner of the office...where there's a slight draft, with a bowl of sugar-free Skittles to see what's what.

Deeply invested / Deeply Invested?

And here it is...

BTW - if you look carefully...the title of the campaign film, is 'Deeply invested' (lowercase "i"), but the signage on the building that you can clearly see on the film is 'Deeply Invested' (uppercase "I"). Mistake?

As you would expect from a prestigious banking institution, the campaign pays deep homage to all of the prerequisite must-haves: a montage of black-and-white vignettes accompanied by inoffensive, echoing chamber music and a smokey male voice, the obvious 'looking away from banking' to emphasis the importance of banking, an image sequence peppered with middle-aged people in offices awkwardly hugging, and then...a line of copy that threw us a bit, "And we unlock the extraordinary power of giving a damn."

"We unlock the extraordinary power of giving a damn"?

From a bank?

Wow.

Nice line Investec. That's the whole ad right there. All the other stuff is nice and sentimental and all that (i.e. bullshit), but if we're honest...largely forgettable.

But boldly throwing in a line that acknowledges how much of a strategic coup it would be for a bank to seriously give a damn about their customers, is nothing short of revolutionary.

No doubt the blue-rinse brigade are going to have a little something to say about a bank using a mildly-offensive word in their advertising, but let them.

Let them make a fuss.

Let them stir the pot.

Let them.

Because their cries are not applicable.