Sorry, where is the bank again? We didn’t quite catch it the first time… or the second… or the tenth.
When people think of the most famous ads ever to grace Irish television, they think of the man dancing around the pint of Guinness, the famous ‘Going Back’ ESB Christmas ad featuring TV3’s Alan Hughes or the ‘Kate, it’s me, the guy from the bar’ Esat Digifone ad of the mid-‘90s.
But there’s one ad missing from that prestigious list, an ad made four decades ago that people of a certain generation may remember, but somehow escaped our attention until now.
An ad, ladies and gentlemen, about a Bank of Ireland in New York.
Some ads are subtle in the way they get their message across, but Bank of Ireland decided to adopt the Ronseal approach (does it exactly what it says on the tin) years before the original Ronseal ad even existed.
By our rough calculations, viewers are told 10 times during the course of a 60-second advertisement that there’s a Bank of Ireland in New York and that doesn’t even include slightly less explicit references to there being “a bank in New York” and an “Irish bank on Fifth Avenue”.
We think we know the bank they’re talking about.
And if that’s not enough, the textbook 1970s soundtrack – which sounds like something out of Shaft – and the slick sideshow of contemporary stock corporate images make this thing the full package.
How this has under 100,000 views on YouTube is beyond us, although we’re sure that wrong will be righted before long.
If you’re like us, that song isn’t going to go out of your head anytime soon and JOE’s own Carl Kinsella has dutifully transcribed the lyrics so you can sing along for the rest of the weekend.
Where’s that bank again?
LYRICS:
Bank of Ireland… In New York (x3)
There's a bank in New York
It's the brightest around
It shows faith in my future
Keeps my feet on the ground
It's the bank for my friends too
Man, it sure made its mark
Irish bank on Fifth Avenue
BANK OF IRELAND NEW YORK— Carl Kinsella (@TVsCarlKinsella) February 24, 2018
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
