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Launching the first UK High Street Bank for more than 100 years

Lansons Communications devised and co-ordinated the PR strategy and launch of the UK’s first new High Street for more than 100 years. The launch spanned corporate, personal finance and consumer communications, and came at a time when trust in banks was at all time low.
Our challenge was to manage, navigate and leverage stakeholder sentiment as scrutiny around the creation of a new bank had never been greater.

Lansons adopted a three pronged approach to educate and garner endorsement for the Metro Bank proposition: to proactively manage any potential issues head on as part of the pre-launch phase, by creating and building momentum in the run up to Metro Bank receiving the FSA banking licence and thirdly creating a buzz at launch.

We targeted key banking press on flagship publications by offering behind the scenes briefings ahead of launch.
Once Metro Bank received its banking licence, we upped the media ante by going on the record and placing profiles and securing broadcast interviews on agenda setting programmes such as Radio 4
Over the launch period we carefully managed the mass scrutiny and leveraged media appetite for the biggest banking story of recent times.

The strategy to educate the UK media and key stakeholders about the Metro Bank proposition (opening twice as long as other banks, and offering greater customer service and convenience – in short aiming to change the face of UK banking) in the run up to launch proved to be successful.
The pre launch preparation enabled Metro Bank to launch from a broadly balanced and positive media platform.
The mass media launch coverage resulted in more than 450 features across all media sets (of which 135 were broadcast and 56 were national print).
The audience reached over the launch period was 187,393,942, and played a significant role in ensuring there were queues of people wanting to open accounts on the day of launch (and following days).