Venables, Bell & Partners, Barclays: a solid bank in a fake world

In a world of Bernie Madoffs, AIGs, and other shifty, scandalous accounts of solid investments evaporating, you gotta be pretty convincing if you’re a bank and hope to gain the trust of your customers and the general public. Not only do you have to appear to be a stable institution, you must also seem trustworthy.

London agency Venables, Bell & Partners seems keenly aware of this with their latest ad for Barclays’

This is certainly a major about-face from Barclays’ award-winning — and highly controversial  — campaign from a number years ago.* You know, the one with Anthony Hopkins talking about Barclay’s being a “big” bank?

It would seem that “big” doesn’t cut it in 2009, but “real” does.

* for the record, younger readers, that old ad wasn’t done by VB&P.