Our History
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 Barclays and named the new company "The Bank" in loving memory of them.
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 two companies. Internal and 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 surprisingly won, the global advertising account for Italian beer Peroni Nastro Azzurro. The Bank's strategic, creative and production skills have helped Peroni launch in 17 countries but most significantly have changed the way beer is both perceived and promoted.
Although domestic work for easyJet, HSBC, Sony Ericcson and DQ Vodka followed, the company believed that a loyalty to Peroni would, in time, pay dividends. Importantly it believed that it should develop "the means of production" and over a five year period acquired not only the hardware but more importantly the visual arts talent normally reserved for London’s post-production elite.
Strategic planning services and financial management resources completed the build up of The Bank and there is a feeling that the company can not only weather the current financial storms but prosper with a business model that is exciting, ambitious but above all different.
International
The Bank has always worked all over the world, but now has two local international offices.
The Bank Cape Town is a film production facility that was originally set up because we were producing so many programmes there. It now offers production facilities to external producers for commercials and feature films.
The Bank has also had a presence in The Middle East for five years, producing product and property launch events in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Bahrain. This year, The Bank Doha will be established as a joint venture with local Qatar company VisionV, creating a permanent base to serve the region.
Consumer Marketing
Our traditional areas of business were corporate film and live events. But, we’ve always had a strong understanding of branding and developing creative ideas that connect effectively with audiences.
In 2005, we were given the opportunity to submit an advertising tender for the Italian beer Peroni Nastro Azzurro, which had recently been bought by brewing giant SABMiller. The Peroni contract has allowed us to use our traditional strengths to create truly integrated marketing campaigns, involving cinema and TV commercials, press and outdoor advertising, brand launches, experiential and guerrilla marketing, and merchandising.
The Bank Today
The Bank can claim to be a new kind of agency, totally suited to the new consumer and corporate marketplaces.
We can genuinely call ourselves integrated because we have creativity and production expertise in-house across most of the marketing and communications media. We haven’t just bolted on a number of different agencies, all fighting for a slice of the same marketing budget. We can truly claim to be integrated because that’s the way we have grown up.