Marketing spend this year is to increase from 拢35m to 拢42m. A spokesperson for Egg said that the brand is trying to cross-sell other services, such as personal loans and insurance to credit card customers, and that email marketing and direct mail will play a large part in this process.
There will be no changes to Egg's "Take Control" advertising through ad agency Mother until the end of the year, when the financial services brand traditionally reviews its marketing. The internet bank currently uses EHS Brann and Direct MediaCom for below-the-line activity.
In the second quarter of 2004, Egg's credit card attracted 171,000 new customers, making it the most popular product. The financial services brand wants to attract a further 500,000 new customers by the end of the year.
The internet bank was recently slammed by the ASA for an email campaign that encouraged people to get into debt with its credit card.
Asking people if they were suffering from SAD or "skint and depressed", the email painted a grim post New Year's Day scenario of broken new year resolutions with nothing to look forward to, and asked if "your bank account looks like Nick Leeson's been at it".
The campaign promoting Egg's credit card had a simple solution -- blow everything and put it all on the credit card.
Egg is currently owned by Prudential and is at the centre of a bidding war, which could see it being taken over by US bank MBNA.
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