“Waiting for a mate to pay you back? Let the boy sort it out for you,” is a humorous push by Barclays for Pingit, the person-to-person mobile service for sending and receiving money for free, to anyone with a UK current account and UK mobile phone number.
The TV commercial, promoting the Barclays Facebook-hosted Pingit app, features a menacing child aggressively asking an adult office worker to repay a pizza debt using the Pingit app. The promotion lets users send custom versions of the video to friends who owe them money, encouraging them to settle via Pingit.
Another new spot, above, stars with another lad and features a voiceover by British comic actor Stephen Merchant (of the original The Office and Pirates of the Caribbean fame).
It's all part of the consumer-facing marketing for Pingit, which Barclays launched in February on iOS, Android and BlackBerry smartphones. Pingit transfers up to £5,000 a day without users having to sharing bank details.
In its first eight weeks, the app was downloaded 400,000 and reached leaderboard position in the financial apps section of Apple's iTunes in February. (Don't miss the basic how-to video, as we reported for Pingit's February launch.)
"Barclays Pingit is proving to be more popular than even we were expecting and from today the customers of all UK banks and building societies can also benefit," said Antony Jenkins, who heads up retail and business banking at Barclays.
"Barclays Pingit is potentially a revolution in banking but this is just the beginning. We are listening to customer feedback and monitoring the demand for additional functionality so there's a lot more to come over the next few months."
Pingit is increasingly popular with small businesses, plus eBay and PayPal users. It moves, lends and invests money for 48 million customers and clients worldwide.
But if you owe a mate some money, there's one angry little boy you’d best settle with first.
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