Skunk - bringing a whiff of hope to the nation

Wunderman Thompson UK’s provocative new brand platform for first direct launches this week, calling out the stinky truth about being skint.

Young people have had a tough time of it in recent years. A broken housing market, the spiralling price of fuel, wage squeezes and even cutting down on dating due to inflation, all laddering up a disastrous cost-of-living crisis and shrinking opportunities for a whole generation.

Created by integrated marketing agency, Wunderman Thompson UK, this campaign calls out the stinkiest situations in life. Life might be hard, but first direct can offer a whiff of hope thanks to the bank’s range of helpful products and services, including a new partnership with Shelter which offers renters free help and advice to tackle housing problems.

The integrated campaign, launching on 30th January, will be social-first, with activations across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. PHD UK and Kepler handled the media, ensuring that all media for the campaign was bought in an ‘unbanklike way’. With a mix of traditional and non-traditional, OOH formats were planned and bought with audience data at the heart and served programmatically, with dynamic creative messaging running throughout. The media is also maximised with a big screen presence, with the video-on-demand ad live across Channel 4, Sky and Netflix from 1st February including prime- time spots during Love Island. Beginning 20th February Xbox players will be met with an interactive landing page experience challenging them to complete a first direct branded mini game for Xbox vouchers.

The creative features a hero spot set in a café with the skunk highlighting all the financial issues that the youth of Britain are facing and how first direct can offer them ‘a whiff of hope’ with their products. Humorous shorter films show our skunk sniffing out other financial issues and show how first direct supports through savings accounts and spending insights.