first direct
Project: Brand Creative Direction
Client: HSBC/first direct
Role: Creative Director/Copy
I worked as a brand writing consultant with first direct’s ad agency JWT and design agency North when the UK bank decided to relaunch its brand. Having established a conversational tone of voice with a series of national press ads, together with North I created the brand book Black and White: A Conversation, a conversational set of guidelines designed both for first direct as well as its various roster agencies - branding, advertising, PR, design, and digital. As Creative Director I oversaw the cross-functional implementation of this brand voice throughout its communications.
It’s virtually impossible to list all the deliverables in this case – I wrote and edited for nearly every aspect of the bank's operations – customer communications, advertising campaigns, online sales campaigns, account applications, SMS messaging, newsletters, legals, call center scripts, UX copy, internal signage, and even Christmas cards. As well as the brand guidelines, I produced all the copy for their website, amounting to dozens of product pages and services areas and hundreds of pages overall; I helmed a brand new crowd-sourced social recommendation site; as well as setting up internal programs designed to help employees with messaging and communications.
first direct's work has won a slew of marketing awards over the years, including Drum Marketing Awards and DADI Awards, while it has been awarded CoolBrands status every year since 2006.