The news: Santander’s Bank of Antandec UK advertising campaign featuring the iconic British TV broadcasting duo Ant and Dec has concluded after six years, per Little Black Book. The series of 15 ads followed the Bank of Antandec as it humorously and unsuccessfully tried to compete with Santander’s products. The final ad is a theatrical musical number parodying "New York, New York," marking the end of the fictional bank featured in the campaign.

Why this campaign mattered: Santander Marketing Director Dan Sherwood said the campaign has been "incredibly successful" and helped Santander "connect with audiences in an entertaining and memorable way," per Ads of the World. The creative, entertainment-based approach has translated into tangible business results.

In addition, the ad campaign approached bank marketing from a unique, creative perspective. The campaign was treated like a TV show with characters and story arcs, and they all got proper send-offs in the finale. 

Viewers grew sympathetic to these characters while they learned about Santander’s latest products—such as the Santander Edge credit card, which caused the fictional Bank of Antadec to go under. The campaign’s creative brief was to highlight that credit card as something its fictional rivals couldn't compete with, per Ads of the World.

Our take: This campaign and its success highlight the importance of humor and storytelling when targeting a broader audience. In a jargon-heavy industry like banking, Santander understood that it wasn't just competing with other banks—it was competing with everything else. 

By investing in a long-running, character-driven narrative, Santander put on a show and achieved a level of engagement and memorability that a simple product-focused ad could never achieve. It also showed consistency by building and maintaining its brand voice over the span of the campaign.