Ad Review: Mother serves up good Egg ads

Well, we'll say this about the strange and intermittently funny campaign for Egg, the U.K. Internet bank: It's different. The default bank-advertising formula, of course, is to do consumer research about what irritates people about their financial institutions, then to claim, "We're different. We care."

They all say it. They're all lying.

Comes now Egg-via Mother, London-which appears to have done the research, but presents no silly little lies. Instead it gives us silly gigantic lies, by inventing an American company named Brilliant Industries that supposedly sells goofy gadgets for overcoming banking headaches. There's the La La La I'm Not Listening Musical Fingers, which plug into your ears when the wife is nagging you about overdue bills; the Magnetic Shoes for collecting loose coins; and (our favorite) the Identity Reinvention Kit, enabling you to fake death to avoid late fees. See Philip Smith's parents opening a letter. "It's about Philip," the old man says. "He's dead."

OK, that's perversely funny. The rest is mainly just irritating in its own right-Diesel advertising, essentially, in the financial services category. In the end, though, each of the spots does trouble itself to pitch Egg's actual services. That may not be brilliant, but at least it's industrious.

Egg

Mother, London

Ad Review Rating: 2.5 stars

London-based Mother is eyeing opening an office in New York. (AA, Nov. 11)