• Product/Brand - Lloyds Bank
• Spot - Horse Story
• Music Title - Wings (Acoustic)
• Artist - Birdy
• Composer - Tedder, Van Den Bogaerde
• Publisher - Kobalt, Warner Chappell
• Record Co - Warner Music
• Music Supervisor - Leland Music
• Ad Agency - adam&eveDDB
• Creatives - Ben Priest, Ben Tollett, Richard Brim
• Film Company - Rogue Films
• Film Director - Sam Brown
• Post Production - The Mill
• Air Date - 29/6/15

Thanks to its famous black horse, The Lloyds Banking Group must be one of the financial sector’s best known brands.

And yet its equine hero was effectively put out to pasture in 2007 following the company’s merger with the TSB and the subsequent launch of the long-running For The Journey TV campaign featuring a collection of cartoon characters travelling through life on a train.

Now the iconic animal is back at the centre of the business’ 250th birthday celebrations. It stars in Horse Story, a 90 second epic symbolising “the determination and trust” which have been among Lloyds core values since first opening its doors to customers in 1765.

With a nod towards children’s classics like Black Beauty and Warhorse – plus a pivotal role for British para showjumper Susi Rogers Hartley – this is a blockbusting commercial guaranteed to bring a lump to the throat.

Others might have been tempted to balance the broad historical sweep of this Sam Brown-directed spot with a similarly grandiose soundtrack. Instead Lloyds’ agency adam&eveDDB and supervisors Leland Music opted for the simplicity of an acoustic version of Birdy’s 2013 Top 20 hit Wings, originally recorded live at Abbey Road for the then 16 year old singer/songwriter’s You Tube channel.

The song rocketed straight to the top of the Shazam TV ads chart following the spot’s debut on June 29. And, after working against the clock to prepare the track for a rush release on iTunes, Warner Music’s in-house teams surely deserve congratulation for converting that interest into a bona fide Top 10 hit.