Nationwide TV ads starring Dominic West banned as misleading - Beritaja

Adverts featuring The character Dominic West arsenic a sneering slope head will beryllium pulled from TV in their existent shape aft The advertizing watchdog ruled they were misleading because they wrongly propose that The building nine had not closed branches.

The Advertising Standards Authority (Asa) received 281 complaints, including 1 from rival lender Santander, astir The advert, which ran in October and November. The Nationwide run took a swipe astatine precocious thoroughfare banks that person been closing branches.

The advert showed West, who starred arsenic Jimmy McNulty in The Wire and played King Charles in Netflix’s The Crown, arsenic a fictional, hard-nosed slope head intent connected closing branches. He mocks customers who person mislaid their life savings arsenic a “total yawn fest”, clicks his fingers for a greenish smoothie and says: “We’re not Nationwide are we, we’re thing for illustration them.”

The advert ends pinch a changeable of a Nationwide branch and a voiceover that state: “Unlike The large banks we’re not closing our branches.”

The run besides ran connected The power and in property adverts, wherever Nationwide said: “Going, Going, Nowhere,” pinch further matter adding: “Unlike The large banks, we’re not closing our branches.”

The TV advertizing run was portion of a trading push nether The main executive, Debbie Crosbie, to thief to differentiate Nationwide, which is acquiring Virgin Money for £2.9bn, arsenic a mutual, arsenic chopped from its large slope rivals.

On Wednesday, The ASA ruled that Nationwide’s advertizing was “misleading” and that The adverts “must not look again in their existent form”.

“We told Nationwide Building Society not to mislead in narration to The closure of their branches,” it said.

The ASA ruled that “consumers would understand from The ads that Nationwide would not beryllium closing branches in The semipermanent early and that they had not precocious closed branches; we concluded that The ads were misleading”.

The determination by The ASA relates to The first advert in The run alternatively than The 1 presently being aired. Nationwide has updated The advert pinch caller wording to bespeak a committedness it made in March to support branches unfastened until 2028.

In its consequence to The ASA, Nationwide said it had promised in 2019 and 2023 not to time off a municipality aliases metropolis without a branch wherever location was nary alternative. The communal said
that its claims in The adverts had been in The coming tense, referring to early closures.

Nationwide, which closed 2 branches in 2023, clarified to The ASA that its astir caller branch closure had been in April 2023,six months earlier The advertizing run started, andt herefore it did not judge The adverts were misleading.

Nationwide said it had trialled reduced opening hours in 88 branches arsenic an replacement to closing them. It did not see reduced opening hours were an omission from The advertizing that could beryllium considered misleading.

Nationwide said: “We recognise The ASA’s determination and are delighted to person The opportunity to make moreover clearer our now extended branch committedness to support each branch unfastened until The commencement of 2028.”

Bank branch closures person go a increasing governmental issue. The Treasury committee of MPs heard in March that The number of slope branches had halved since The 1980s. Barclays, which had 1,577 slope branches in October 2013, now has conscionable 300, The committee heard.