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The new branch is fitted out to
the new modern standards that become commonplace in Martins in the mid
1960s. Darkness, both in terms of
lighting and furnishing is out, and light airy conditions are applied
wherever possible. Note the Martins
Coat of Arms on the external image above, its days are already numbered, as
the Liver Bird is dropped from Martins’ branding at the beginning of
1968. This is despite “The Eagle and
the Grasshopper – a Fable” (see BEGINNING OF THE END) giving the impression of a
“marriage” between the emblems of two banks, the days of the
grasshopper are also going to be short-lived.
… and now: A word in the right direction!
We are not sure whether the Bank’s
advertising department was suddenly in love with the idea of spy-film
culture, or whether the hippie phrases of the flower-power era were just beginning
to enter the world of advertising, yet this short-lived campaign for new
branches, entitled “A word in the right direction” is concieved – but thankfully
used – only a few times to herald new offices of the Bank!
This is of course the final “fling”
of Martins Bank’s full independence, a time when anything is possible, and
having opened a second drive-in branch that year at Epsom, and introduced iconic
advertising featuring all manner of zoo animals, Martins Bank is opening
branches as fast as it can, and working just as hard to grab the attention
of potential customers – be this achieved by a small girl with a pet
elephant, a businessman with a sea lion companion, a man undergoing a rocky
relationship with a hippo, or someone apparently leaning out of a bush and
saying “psssst! A word in the right direction, mate”… In the days before banks are allowed to
advertise on television, this is cutting edge stuff! There is also a charm and an innocence
about it all, that harks back to a Britain that although existing around
sixty years ago, appears now to be almost buried in the sands of time when
compared to the pace and complexity of life in the twenty-first century…
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Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections
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