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England is in the midst of World Cup fever, with almost every other ad on the television at the moment having some tie-in with football and featuring one or more famous footballers.

Now even Nationwide has got in on the action. In its latest campaign, the obnoxious rival bank manager dozes off while talking to a customer and dreams of saving a goal in a penalty shootout that wins the World Cup for England.

The building society's series of ads is directed by the satirist Armando Iannucci and stars Mark Benton as a rude and insolent bank manager driving people away from high street banks to seek an alternative at Nationwide.

Since it began running last year, the campaign has made a catchphrase of Benton's repeated muttering of "brand new customers only".

So far, the ads seem to have been a thorough success for Britain's biggest building society, with each new ad in the series invariably giving a boost to Nationwide's scores, according to YouGov. And they have paid financial dividends too, with the group announ-cing record profits in May, having swiped business from the high street banks. But the magic of football fever doesn't seem to be rubbing off - the World Cup ad doesn't seem to have had much effect upon perceptions of the brand.

Buzz briefly rose four points, but there was little effect on Nationwide's other measures. In contrast, the mainstream obnoxious bank manager ads are still having a positive effect - the latest, launched on 12 June, shows the bank manager explaining to a work experience intern, using cringingly inappropriate examples, how the banks manage to make a profit on credit cards, thereby highlighting how Nationwide allows customers to pay off their credit cards debts at a preferential rate.

In perhaps a reflection of our increasingly debt-ridden society, buzz jumped from eight to 14, "recommend to a friend" rose four points to +18 and general impression rose four points.

Clearly people like comedy ads, but it seems the bottom line is they really have an effect when they manage to combine comedy with actual positive messages about a brand.

METHODOLOGY

YouGov's BrandIndex is a daily measure of public perception of more than 1,100 consumer brands across 32 sectors, measured on a seven-point profile, with data delivered next day.

YouGov interviews 2,000 people each weekday, more than half a million interviews per year.

This means you can spot trends as soon as they happen, not when it's too late. Respondents are drawn from an online panel of more than 130,000.

The score is the net rating: people are asked to identify the brands to which they have a positive response, and then those to which they have a negative response, to whatever is the prompt measure. The net score is the positive minus the negative.

Each is taken independently - in any one survey, any individual respondent is asked about only one measure for the sector, not all seven. Therefore, none of the readings influence each other within the survey.

YouGov stresses the importance of this. The seven measures that make the complete profile are below.

1. Buzz

2. General impression

3. Quality

4. Value

5. Satisfaction

6. Recommend

7. Corporate reputation

In addition, Brand Index supplies an overall index score.

www.brandindex.com

Contact: sundip.chahal@yougov.com.