Why you still bank with the Co-op - videos

The Customer Union for Ethical Banking (Save Our Bank campaign) is running a social media campaign aimed at recruiting Co-op Bank customers to join the union.

The campaign focuses on the strong and often courageous messages used by the bank in the past about its ethical stance - messages that went beyond just establishing the bank's ethical credentials and were political statements in their own right.

The Customer Union wants to see the bank return to such forthright campaigning stance and has been encouraged by some of the recent stances taken by the bank, for example on nuclear weapons and trans rights.

Here are some of the bank's past cinema ads. We are makeing these into 'memes' for sharing on Facebook and Twitter, with more to follow soon. Click on the videos to download your own copy to post and share!

How you will die

Release in 1997 this dramatic ad was designed to shock. So much so that when we posted the meme on Facebook, they initially banned it, saying that it was too sexually explicit. We have no idea why.

Wanker

Another fearless cinema ad that used the 'w' word, challenged audiences' preconceptions, and made no attempt to promote the bank's services.

Pollution

This somewhat alarming cinema ad uses sudden noises to draw the attention of audiences to problems with the environment, while listing more prosaic advantages of a Co-op bank account.

Thank you

Our thanks to Midcounties Cooperative who provided a grant to help us with this project.