[Acrylic-bob]

Watching TV the other day I saw two adverts for Barclays Bank which, sort of, made me wonder what sort of message they were trying to convey.

Both seem to involve what Barclays apparently consider to be innovative banking ideas and the people who develop them.

Without exception, their development teams are portrayed as complete and utter idiots with one clown apparently feverishly working in the office, after everyone has gone home, to simply come up with the groundbreaking idea that it might be a crowd puller if they paid their customers more in interest on their savings.

While this idea is no doubt a breath of fresh air and something of a sea change for Barclays, whose rapaciousness is legendary, the question remains, why do they have to portray their workers as idiots? And, what is more worrying, why do they believe that the public is more likley to trust a financial organisation which chooses to staff its offices with people who you would not trust to sit the right way round on a lavatory?