Shedgate

Advertising savings products is always a challenge because it's in abstract thing.   It means different things to different people.   You can't really show a wheelbarrow full of money being pushed by someone with grey hair, who's laughing his head off.

The now defunct finance companies advertised aggressively directly to the people and I think this is where they inflicted the most damage.   I wince at the memory of the Hanover TV ads, for example.   They were very persuasive and soothing.    One was about a shed on a farm that weathered several storms over many years.

What was particularly insulting was that the advertising agency would have created the ad after listening to Hanover about who the target market was.    So they went with  "a rural bloke talking about his old shed".   And then it was implied heavily that Hanover was "just like that old shed".   That's about as much detail as they thought their prospective customers could handle.   They will have decided that, on purpose, in meetings.

The irony is that the old shed is probably still there, whereas Hanover has gone.

Hang on though...did the shed even exist in the first place?   Given what has gone on, it's a fair question. 

This is of course a minor quibble compared to the hardship suffered by those who lost their savings and I don't mean to make light of that at all   

However, it is worth noting that anyone who wants your money and advertises like Hanover did or they get all soft-focus and sentimental, like the old Werthers Original TV commercials - then I would raise your eyebrow and keep it raised until they offer something of substance.