To create one's very own high-street brand must be a dream for any marketer. Yet Anthony Thomson, chairman and co-founder of soon-to-launch Metro Bank, seems far more excited by the prospect of unleashing his brand mascot, 'Metro Man', on the public.
Newcastle-born Thomson, or 'AT' to his friends, excitedly describes how the giant red and blue 'M' character was 'mobbed' when taken out for a series of promotional photographs for the banking chain. His enthusiasm extends to the most ostensibly dull aspects of his start-up, from IT systems to recruitment.
There is something refreshingly old-school about Thomson's approach. Not for him an over-dependence on data or obsession with heritage and nostalgia. Instead, with shamelessly populist innovations such as Metro Man, he is harking back to a more innocent time when marketing was about inspiring consumers.
Consumer focus
Metro Man takes its inspiration from a similar 'C'-shaped mascot used by Commerce Bank, the US chain once owned by Thomson's business partner, Vernon Hill. In fact, much of the Metro Bank proposition takes its lead from Hill's former enterprise, which he founded in 1973 and built up to nearly 500 branches.
Through Commerce Bank, Hill, also a one-time Burger King franchise-owner, set out to make banking more convenient. With Metro Bank, the first new business to be granted a UK banking licence in more than a century, Thomson certainly wishes to shake up a sector largely unchanged since the introduction of HSBC's direct-banking brand, First Direct, in 1989.
The 56-year-old plans to open up to 200 branches - or 'stores', as he prefers to call them - within the M25 over the next decade, starting in London in the coming weeks with one in Kensington and a flagship branch in Holborn.
Metro Bank will open seven days a week from 8am until 8pm, closing only over Easter, and on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. The family-friendly branches will feature hotel lobby-style open cashier desks, free-to-use coin-counting machines and customer toilets. Long-serving banking executives may also raise an eyebrow at the offer of free dog biscuits for any consumer wishing to bring their pooch into branches.
Thomson, who for eight years was chief executive of financial-services marketing advisory body The Financial Services Forum, and is now chairman, is well aware of the shortcomings of bank marketing and confident he can woo consumers with a different kind of product.
'Too many banks think they are in business to make money, and that they can only succeed at the expense of the customer.
We are in business to give great customer service, and hopefully we will make some money along the way,' he says.
Thomson is complimentary about a handful of bank ad campaigns, including Lloyds TSB's ongoing 'For the journey' work, but argues there is a big discrepancy between marketing rhetoric and the reality of in-branch service. '(Former Lloyds Banking Group chief marketing officer) Nigel Gilbert did an excellent job, but he could only work with what he was given, and structurally banks are not set up to deliver good customer service,' he adds.
Thomson believes a combination of cherry-picked customer-facing staff - the first 65 employees were selected from more than 3500 applicants - and a new single-customer-view IT platform, combining all product areas, will give Metro Bank the edge. 'The great thing is that the customer is absolutely at the centre of all we do. We are open when customers want to bank and are going to empower people to give great customer service,' he says.
However, Thomson faces a significant obstacle to his ambitions: exacerbated by the banking crisis two years ago, high-street banks are among the least-trusted brands in the country. When Metro Bank's first two branches were adorned with the slogan 'Love your bank', it was intended to provoke feelings of incredulity in passers-by.
The strategy is for Metro Bank to become the 'community bank' for dozens of inner-city and suburban areas, with London boroughs such as Croydon and Hammersmith and Fulham set for branch openings over the coming 12 months. One of the big questions is whether Thomson can tap into any sense of community in areas with such a fluid residential and worker population.
'It is not going to be the same as a little village in Yorkshire, but there are aspects of that sense of community,' he says. 'Holborn Tube station is used 35m times a year and we want to be the bank of Holborn, for people who live and work in Holborn.'
To engage local populations, Metro Bank will pursue a branch-based marketing strategy, with heavy use of direct and field marketing, as well as PR. Branch staff are already reaching out to local businesses and organisations in the hope of winning customers from NatWest, HSBC and Lloyds TSB. As the branch network expands, the brand will look to increase its use of above-the-line media.
Despite this proactive approach, another hurdle for Thomson to negotiate is the idea that consumers never change their bank willingly. He refutes this, citing Office of Fair Trading statistics that suggest the number of consumers swapping accounts nearly doubled between 2007 and 2009. 'People switched (because) they are so pissed off with the bank they are with, it is almost a protest vote. They don't think the bank they are joining will be any better.'
With further entrants to the sector expected over the coming months, and names such as Tesco and Virgin lining up banking propositions, Metro Bank will not be the only brand looking to profit from disillusionment with bigger high-street options. Thomson says it is likely that Tesco in particular will do a 'great job' attracting bank customers, and claims the arrival of new options will only make consumers more likely to abandon their old banks.
For anyone wondering whether Metro Bank will be an entirely London-centric brand, Thomson insists that it will look to open branches elsewhere, although he admits it is years away from setting up shop in cities like Birmingham or Edinburgh.
It is probably fair to say that the odds are stacked against Metro Bank, given the enormity of the economic problems facing the country. Yet, with its apparently genuine intention to change UK banking for the better, it is difficult not to find oneself rooting for the fledgling business. If Thomson can find a way to tap into the real dissatisfaction with high-street banks, Metro Bank may just stand a chance.
INSIDE WORK
1983-87: Various roles, rising to sales and marketing director, Sun Life of Canada
1987-97: Founder, City Financial Marketing
2000-present: Founder, chief executive, becoming chairman, Financial Services Forum
2008-present: Founder and chairman, Metro Bank
OUTSIDE WORK
Family: Married, three children
Lives: Hampstead, London, and Harrogate, North Yorkshire
Hobbies: Collecting wines, guitars
Favourite guitarist: Richard Thompson
Favourite brand: Starbucks.