|
Cardboard or Plastic?
In the mid to late 1960s, the current account becomes at
last portable with the issue to customers of Martins Bank Bankers Card. Remember, the number of CASH MACHINES
in
the UK is only just into double figures, so if the holder of cheque card
finds themselves in a town without a branch of Martins, they are at least able
to cash a cheque up to the value of £30 (quite a useful sum at that time), at
any of the participating banks: Looking more like something you had carefully
cut out from the back of a breakfast cereal packet, these quaint yet
perfectly functional cheque guarantee cards are actually in use well into the
early 1970s when they are gradually replaced by the more familiar (clinical)
plastic variety.
|
|
BANKERS CARD
ISSUED BY:
Lloyds Bank Ltd
Martins Bank Limited
Williams Deacon’s Bank Ltd
Yorkshire Bank Ltd
Glyn Mills and Company
The National Bank Ltd
Lewis’s Bank Ltd
Bank of Scotland
Royal Bank of Scotland
National Commercial Bank of Scotland Ltd
Bank of Ireland
Hibernian Bank Ltd
The National Bank of Ireland Ltd
|
|
Shame indeed, but thinking about it logically, why did
no-one think of making a plastic cheque card, at a time when plastic credit and charge cards were already in use in the UK?
 For Barclays, the
smart move is into a small piece of plastic – one which will outlast any cardboard
counterpart, and more importantly come to revolutionise the way we spend (or,
more accurately BORROW) our money for decades to come. The BARCLAYCARD is invented, and the idea
of a credit card that can also be used to guarantee cheques is born. Another crucial step is to ADVERTISE the
new concept of Barclaycard on TV – but how?
A gentleman’s agreement amongst all eleven English Clearing Banks
means that NO bank will Advertise alone on TV. As we find out now from John Dalton, Former
Barclaycard Advertising Manager, the dithering over being the first bank to
advertise on TV went on into the 1970s, with Barclays believing they had
succeeded in 1972. Then in 1989, a somewhat embarrassing discovery is made….
A
Gentleman’s Agreement?
 To say that “Barclaycard ‘A piece of Plastic’” was a TV commercial
isn’t strictly true and it obscures a
fascinating aspect of early bank television advertising history. That film
was used only in cinemas and at promotional events. Until the 1970s, all the English banks honoured an
agreement that none of them would advertise
on television; the only bank advertising being screened in those days was the
famous “Bank Manager in the Cupboard”
screened by the Committee of London Clearing Banks. In 1972 Barclays believed that another bank might break
the agreement. For a competitor to be able to say that they were first on
television was a prospect (that Barclays general managers couldn’t possibly
contemplate – (neither did they want to be the Villains’ who broke the
agreement). Barclaycard was the perfect
solution; we were given a hefty supplementary budget of £93,000 just to get on the air first. Les
Priestley and I supervised the production of two commercials during our lunch
break one day. They were made at ITN’s West End studios and the whole job was
done in less than 20 minutes; in later years I would go overseas with Alan
Whicker for a whole two weeks, spend three times as
much on production and come back with three
commercials! Serious planned television
advertising from Barclaycard didn’t begin until 1978 when we made jewellers Shop with Dudley Moore.
Having said all that, it was not until 1989 that we
discovered that the very first Barclaycard television commercial wasn’t by
Barclays at all. It was made in about 1967 by the British Linen Bank (who at
that time offered Barclaycard to their Scottish customers) and was shown only
North of the Border.
John’s comments were orignially written in a letter to Barclays
Connection Magazine in 2000 and are reproduced here by kind permission of
Barclays’ Connection. Advertisement and Barclaycard Name and Logo © Barclays and all
other rights holders 1966 to date.
Martins Bank is first
on TV in England!
The story above solves
another minor mystery in Martins Bank’s history – their 1968 TV advertisement
for Martins Unicorn is shown by three ITV companies – Granada, Yorkshire and
Southern. These areas have the largest
concentrations of Martins Bank Branches and customers. By perhaps taking
notice of the British Linen Bank’s lead for advertising in Scotland the
product of a Barclays SUBSIDIARY company, Martins too is able to circumvent the special agreement, and in
the process it becomes the first bank to advertise on TV in England, AND
without looking like the villain of the piece! Our search for a copy of the Martins ad
continues, but you can see stills from it, and read more about how it was
made, by clicking HERE.
The long and winding
road to credit scoring…
|
As preparations for the merger of Martins Bank and Barclays Bank gain
pace, Barclays spots an early opportunity to offer its still new Credit
Card facility to the customers of Martins Bank. Not EVERY
customer of course, mostly just those with a particularly high “net
worth”. This fairly innocent looking
letter turns up on the doormats of the fairly well to do, inviting them on
an opt-OUT only basis to enjoy the use of their very own BARCLAYCARD.
 It is interesting
to note, that since its arrival in 1966, the Barclaycard was capable by
1969 of offering credit via 42,000 outlets – nothing close to the many
millions that are today shared amongst thousands of card issuers around the
World, but nevertheless impressive for the time. In the late 1960s, religion and a very
“British” state of mind meant that many would shy away from the thought of
using credit, “never a borrower, nor a lender be” uppermost in their minds.
However, the credit bug became irresistible, and helped by a clarification
of customer rights in the 1974 Consumer Credit Act, we’ve been borrowing on
the “never never” ever since. It is
a sobering thought that in the 2020s we are encouraged to build a CREDIT
rating, rather than to save for the things we need. The invention of the DEBIT card in the
early 1980s was greeted with suspicion by many, who could not separate out
in their minds the difference between a plastic cheque and a credit card.
Now, debit cards are indispensable, and along with being able to pay by mobile
phone, watches and other devices, the days of cash itself are numbered,
along with those of most Bank Branches. Credit alone is no longer enough –
you must also stay permanently wired into your own “credit score”,
otherwise, it would seem, you are not a very good person at all…
|
|
 M
R
|
