Barclays Runs First Bank TV Campaign Across Ethnic Channels

Barclays Bank is running a television campaign for its personal current account across the 12 ethnic digital channels represented by multicultural digital TV saleshouse MEMS, marking the first time a UK bank has run a campaign across a roster of ethnic channels.

The six-week campaign will target more than two million Asian, Afro-Caribbean and Latin American viewers on the ethnic channels, with the creative for the campaign being handled by BBH and media by Starcom.

Commenting on the campaign, Anthony Greenidge, sales and marketing director of MEMS said: “Ethnic television channels are building substantial audiences that advertisers need to target specifically in the right editorial environment. We believe Barclays is setting an example that other advertisers will follow.”

Channels running the advertising include ZEE SAW, the new English speaking news service for Britain’s South Asian community, PTV Prime, the long running Pakistani channel, Dove TV, the new aspirational Afro-Caribbean channel and Passion TV, another new channel which is the first to be aimed at British born Afro Caribbean’s.

All MEMS channels are heavily involved in The UK Ethnic Survey, one of the largest ever surveys of media consumption by ethnic minorities, hoping to build a database of information giving a broad knowledge of ethnic media habits, rather than relying on the ad hoc and project focused solutions developed so far (see MEMS To Launch Ethnic Media Consumption Survey).

Last months, MEMS announced the addition of four new channels to its portfolio, increasing its line up to total 15 Asian, Afro-Caribbean and Latin American broadcasters in the UK (see MEMS Adds Ethnic Channels To Portfolio).

The company now handles national sales for the long-running Asian channel, Zee TV as well as the new ZEE SAW channel, offering English speaking news for Britain’s South Asian community.

Pakistani channel PTV Prime, and Afro Caribbean channel Dove TV also join the MEMS portfolio, along with Passion TV, another new channel, and the first to be aimed at British-born Afro Caribbean’s.

MEMS is the fastest-growing and largest ethnic television sales house in the country, with more than two million viewers currently watching its channels. Other channels represented by MEMS are BEN TV, Record TV, OBE TV and the B4U Network.

MEMS: www.memstv.co.uk