Nationwide’s Dominic West advert has been banned for being “deceptive”

A Nationwide tv advert starring Dominic West has been banned following complaints and investigation.

The advert claimed that the constructing society was not closing branches, and would proceed to maintain branches open. Nevertheless, the Promoting Customary Authority (ASA) has discovered the advert to be “deceptive” based on a report printed on their web site.

The advert, which stars The Crown star as a smug financial institution supervisor making an attempt to shut down extra branches, promoted Nationwide’s dedication to sustaining open branches till 2026, that includes the road: “In contrast to the massive banks, we’re not closing our branches.”

The advert has acquired 282 complaints, together with from Santander, who challenged Nationwide’s declare that they weren’t closing their branches.

The ASA report discovered that whereas Nationwide had the smallest share of department closures in comparison with different comparable monetary establishments, that they had closed 20 per cent of their property over a ten-year interval, equating to 152 branches.

The ASA additionally discovered an absence of readability surrounding the validity of the Department Promise, which is barely in place till 2026, after which Nationwide may begin closing branches completely. This has since been prolonged till “no less than the beginning of 2028” based on a current Instagram put up by the constructing society.

The report issued by the ASA discovered that within the 18 months since Nationwide initially launched the Model Promise in July 2022, the constructing society had completely closed 20 branches. The report added: “Of these 20, 14 had been closed within the 12 months previous the marketing campaign, with two of them having been closed in 2023.”

They concluded that this may very well be vital to clients selecting to affix Nationwide, and that by not being clear about branches that had not too long ago closed, the advert was deceptive.

The ASA discovered the tv advert to have breached BCAP (Broadcasting Committee of Promoting Apply) Code guidelines, together with Deceptive promoting, Substantiation and Qualification.

As such, the ASA has dominated that the advert mustn’t seem once more in its “present type” and have acknowledged that they’ve “advised Nationwide Constructing Society to not mislead in relation to the closure of their branches.”