Who are we?

The Bank is a creative company that specialises in courageous, visually striking communications for professional, premium and luxury brands. Through brand development, advertising, film and live events, we surprise and delight audiences internally, externally, and around the world.

What makes us different?

We are unique in that we create, produce and deliver everything in-house. This enables us to keep an obsessive eye on the detail and ensure nothing, strategically or creatively, is lost in 3rd party translation. For our clients, our best in breed, in-house resources mean we are able to deliver work that is better, faster and bespoke to individual needs.

What do we believe in?

We believe in the power of beauty and its ability to move people.

We believe fortune truly favours the brave.

We believe standing for everything is just another way of standing for nothing.

We believe in people over process.

We believe in being prepared.

What do we deliver?

We create Magnetic Ideas^TM for brands with big ambitions. Our proprietary planning tool marries internal truth with external realities. The result is creative thinking that gets noticed and gets results.

We produce

Brave Ideas. Beautifully Executed.

Cape Town Production Facility

Cape Town is a great place to shoot. They don’t call it God’s film set for nothing. The city has been consistently ranked first for choice of location, level of production support and value for money. An average of 13 hours sunshine a day means you can work for much longer. The overall experience is simply unparalleled. We first started shooting in Cape Town ten years ago. We liked it so much, it’s why we’re out there now.

Electric Films

Electric Films works on TV commercials and films at the Cape Town Production Facility. We work with production companies in the UK and abroad. So, once a director and production company are confirmed on a job, we sort out and manage the actual shoot in Cape Town. We can also provide an editing and post production service, though most production companies have their own post arrangements in place.

The facility in Cape Town is run by ex-agency and production company people, which means we understand both sides of the fence. We also have experience in agency and production company producing, as well as running client business. We are the only South African facility company whose head offices is in London, allowing us to liaise with our UK clients directly.

Introduction

The Bank was born in June 1992 following the failure of West London Music Production Company Stiletto.

Stiletto had started as an independent record label but then pioneered Music Marketing with massive sales of promotional music products as well as the sponsorship of major recording acts. Film production, initially with pop promos, and event management were core businesses of the enterprise but a combination of the early 90s recession and ill treatment from the company’s bankers proved too much. The owners however, blamed a particular high street bank and named the new company “The Bank” in loving memory of them.

The Bank begins

Starting life in Soho Square, The Bank soon moved to its current, though now highly expanded, offices in Berners Street. A major breakthrough came in 1994 when the fledgling mobile provider Orange asked the company to help on dealer communications. The next eight years witnessed the growth of a unique relationship between the companies. Internal, brand building work was later followed by external communications including efforts to build the Orange BAFTA Film Awards, the Orange Arrows F1 Team around the world as well as the global IPO roll out.

The Bank produced numerous films for Orange, including a highly significant vision film “Orange World” in Cape Town, South Africa and decided to open a film office in the city to service not only its own productions but those of other agencies and film production companies.

The event side of The Bank also thrived during this period as it helped launch Orange around the world. This success also enabled the company to expand notably into The Middle East firstly in Dubai then Qatar. In 2005 The Bank produced one of the largest events ever undertaken in the region, the launch of the Aspire Sports Academy, and this ambitious approach was matched in the UK by the emotional, and highly complex, fly past above London for The Royal British Legion and Shell.

Orange had also encouraged The Bank to create advertising with 27 commercials in a three year period which included the most watched Orange TVC of all time for Formula One. In 2005 The Bank pitched for, and won, the global advertising account for Italian beer Peroni Nastro Azzurro. The Bank’s strategic, creative and production skills have helped Peroni launch in 21 countries but most significantly have changed the way beer is both perceived and promoted.

Food for thought

The Hot-Desk Café

As we didn’t want to keep this all to ourselves, we recently created The Hot-Desk Café. Many of our clients look for places in central London where they can work for an hour or two between meetings. The hot-desk area in the café is somewhere they can come and hang out, go on Facebook in peace and quiet, finalise evening arrangements, or even do some work.

The area is fully Wi-fied up and tea, coffee, and cold drinks are in constant supply. They can also book meeting rooms in advance, subject to availability. We have a soft seating area for more relaxed and intimate chats, and table football if anyone feels foolhardy enough to take us on.