The latest campaign for Barclaycard, created by ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty and planned by Walker Media, marks a break from tradition.
Following several years of ads featuring Julian Rhind-Tutt and Stephen Mangan, the brand has moved away from the humour provided by the Green Wing actors towards a more uplifting form of marketing, with a simple, yet visually impressive, campaign.
Notably, Barclaycard is not the only brand in the banks and financial services sector to have launched new ads in recent weeks.
Capital One's campaign, "Life is better when you know what's coming", aired last month, suggesting that the banking sector is attempting to counteract the consumer backlash towards its brands in the aftermath of the global credit crisis.
The first Barclaycard ad from the new campaign, which aims to raise awareness of Barclaycard's contactless technology, aired on 28 October.
The ad features a man who is just about to leave the office. He changes out of his work attire and into swimwear, before opening the door to an unusual storeroom. Inside this storeroom is the top of a waterslide, which the man jumps down to begin his journey home, with the slide conveniently ending at his own front door. Towards the end of the ad, the narrator mentions the tagline, "Making payments simpler: contactless technology from Barclaycard".
So, what impact has the visually exciting campaign had on the brand's scores?
Since the new Barclaycard ad first aired, the buzz, quality and corporate scores for the brand have all increased. The brand's buzz rating peaked at -1 on 5 November, representing an increase of seven points since the launch of the campaign.
The increase in the brand's quality and corporate scores (up five points and three points respectively) suggest the ad has initially been well received by consumers.
Barclaycard will hope that its light-hearted ads will ease viewers' minds in the present climate of uncertainty, where consumers are increasingly conscious of the pitfalls of borrowing.
However, the million-dollar question is whether Barclaycard's new positioning will benefit the brand in the longer term.
METHODOLOGY: YouGov interviews 2,000 people each weekday to form its BrandIndex, a daily measure of public perception of more than 1,100 consumer brands across 32 sectors. It is measured on a seven-point profile:
1 Buzz
2 General impression
3 Quality
4 Value
5 Satisfaction
6 Recommend
7 Corporate reputation.
In addition, we supply an index score.
Richard Wood,