First Direct launches social media campaign

First Direct is to launch a social media campaign this month aimed at finding out what matters to customers.

The online and telephone bank will use its own website and other social networks to find out what consumers find worthwhile with the aim of improving its own customer service and drive word of mouth recommendation online.

Mark Mullen, head of marketing for the HSBC-owned brand, says the campaign, created by Brahm, aims “to seize and start” the online conversation.

“We are trying to find new ways of interacting with our customers without barging in,” he says.

Mullen says it is “myopic” to leverage just traditional channels of communication and it is up to “little brands” like First Direct to lead the way on social media.

The move follows the bank’s recent television campaign, created by JWT that features a series of black and white archived footage and the strapline “banking’s better in black and white”.

Later this month, First Direct will sponsor the Grand Designs exhibition in London a move, Mullen says, aimed at pushing the bank’s “foray” into the mortgage market with its offset mortgages.

Last October, it launched the “Little Black Book”, a social network for customers.