With an advertising tag line of "1 + 1 = 3", the newly merged permanent tsb clearly hopes that its customers are lateral thinkers - banks are, after all, supposed to be able to do basic maths.
According to its marketing director, Mr Niall O'Grady, the idea behind the first brand-building advertising campaign is that the new entity will be greater than the sum of its two parts. However, the irony of a bank using faulty maths to market itself seems inescapable.
The Irish Permanent was one of the strongest brands in Irish financial services with a multimillion euro spend above the line on advertising and several high-profile innovative sponsorships ranging from the Irish rugby team to RTÉ's home improvement series Beyond the Hall Door. The TSB, which rebranded from the Trustee Savings Bank after a series of mergers in the 1980s, has had a lower brand profile.
The new campaign, which launches next Monday, was devised by Dublin agency Index which won the account after a competitive pitch in September that also included CDP which had worked on TSB and QMP D'arcy which had been Irish Permanent's agency. Mindshare are the media planners on the account.
The 40-second television advertisement is described by the bank as "the backbone of its communications strategy", which will include press, outdoor, radio and direct mail.
It appears in a market that is becoming increasingly familiar with rebranding, most obviously the innovative "Eircell is the new Vodafone" campaign.
Surprisingly, in its first brand- building campaign, permanent tsb has gone for a particularly bland creative execution. The advertisement is made entirely of stock shots - film that can be bought off the peg from specialist film libraries - and it has that overly glossy, stagey feel that usually dogs stock shots. The images are predictable and clichéd - couples walking on the beach, children playing and the inevitable nude baby in the crook of a man's arm. The sound track is Get on with your short life by Irish singer Brian Kennedy.
The images and the 1+1 = 3 tagline researched well among customers, according to Mr O'Grady, who added that they also showed a clear preference in the focus group discussions for the new logo.
That logo, which is the name of the new bank in lower case type topped by an abstract image of people, was created by award-winning Irish design house Enterprise IG.
The bank's mail-shot to its 1.2 million customers had to be delayed until yesterday so as not to conflict with the Referendum Commission's mailing of its explanatory leaflet.
The rebranding of the new entity will be complete by the end of June when the next phase of the marketing strategy will commence. It will focus on new products and services.
Mr John Ryan and Ms Melanie Morris, publishers of the new celebrity weekly Stars on Sunday, have gone for a less-controversial launch campaign then their last outing - for their magazine Gay Ireland. That showed two men in GAA jerseys kissing. This time they've gone for celebrity teen band Six in a €150,000 billboard and radio campaign that breaks on Monday.
Stars on Sunday, which is being co-published by Ashville Media, launches on St Patrick's Day and, at €1, it seems intended as an add- on purchase for newspaper buyers.
