Bristol & West gears up for 8m relaunch

Bristol & West is slashing its financial products range as part of a major relaunch of the building society. The UK’s ninth-largest building society is planning an 8m TV advertising campaign which will break in the first week of October.

Bristol & West is slashing its financial products range as part of a major relaunch of the building society.

The UK’s ninth-largest building society is planning an 8m TV advertising campaign which will break in the first week of October. The society is aiming to raise its profile amid rumours it that is seeking a buyer.

B&W head of marketing Christine Martin says the new three-year strategy will involve cutting financial products, which it launched in the wake of the 1986 Financial Services Act.

Services such as travellers’ cheques, foreign currency and unsecured loans have been scrapped. And cash management, which is more difficult to axe, will be phased out over the next year.

“Building societies all jumped on the bandwagon by adding financial products in the late Eighties in the misguided belief that they could compete with banks without providing a point of difference,” says Martin.

The society will concentrate on mortgages, loans and savings.

B&W ditched ad agency TBWA in December and moved its business into Bristol-based Jefferies Parker Hall.

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