Egg campaign goes for a direct message to improve male appeal

Internet bank Egg has redesigned its £1m online ad campaign after discovering it has less appeal for men than women.

It has found that the ad created a favourable response with 31 per cent of women but only 13 per cent of men, and that men preferred a more direct ad with a clearer message. The new ads are simpler, with more information about the product. It forms part of Egg’s “speaking socks” campaign that included television ads created by its lead advertising agency Mother.

Egg says that the advertising campaign resulted in 196,000 new credit card accounts being issued in the UK.

The idea for the online campaign was originally developed by EHS Brann, which was executed by Egg in house. The ad will appear on The Guardian, Thisismoney, NTL and BT/Yahoo websites. The redesigned work goes live this week. MediaCom is responsible for media planning and buying.

Egg offers credit cards, loans, savings, travel insurance and motor insurance. It was set up in 1998 by Prudential and was floated on the stock market in 2000. Prudential continues to own 79 per cent of the company. While Egg has pioneered online banking in the UK, its attempts to break into France have been less successful and are under review.

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