• by Karl Greenberg , June 23, 2009

Wachovia and new sibling Wells Fargo are launching their first conjoined-twins ad campaign since the latter acquired the former earlier this year. The bicameral effort comprises at least five TV spots for Wachovia, Wells Fargo or both, with the same creative theme, music, look and feel for all.

The effort, via DDB West, carries the "We're with you" tagline with text in blue for Wachovia and red for Wells Fargo. The 30-second folksy spots use vignettes featuring real people -- or actors-as-real-people -- doing prosaic things that suggest the underlying costs involved. The ads posit the bank brands as places where empathetic customer service abounds, and customers' problems are solved.

One of the ads touts both bank brands. As vignettes of people doing prosaic and household activities roll by, the voiceover says: "We all need people who will be there for us in life, people who say we're with you no matter what. At Wachovia and Wells Fargo, we're with you when a house turns into a home, when passion becomes a career ... Wachovia, Wells Fargo and you: together we'll go far."

The two ads for Wells Fargo also have the tag: "Together we'll go far," and tout the bank's lending policies, and the bank's online saving and planning tools with a family with triplets.

The pair of ads for Wachovia tout the bank's "Way to Save" program by which every time a customer swipes a card through a reader, a dollar is transferred from his/her checking to savings account. One features a woman who volunteers as a dog rescuer, and another a family saving for their daughter's college expenses.

The ads feature actors, but the feel is documentary. They were directed by Jeff Preiss, a partner at Epoch Films, which produced for DDB. Preiss was also director of photography for Bruce Weber's famed biopic "Let's Get Lost" about jazz trumpeter Chet Baker.

He tells Marketing Daily that finding the triplets was hard: "We had to tap into this triplet database, and we found this family in Washington, D.C., did a video conference with them and were floored. They were sensational."

Preiss says the actor in the dog-rescue ad is a bona fide dog-rescue volunteer. "We wanted to keep it real."

Wells Fargo's acquisition of Wachovia in January created a network of 11,000 stores and 12,260 ATMs. Wells Fargo and Wachovia customers can use both ATMs.

Wells Fargo says it has banks in 39 states and the District of Columbia and is the leader in community banking in the U.S. with 6,650 stores; and No. 2 in the U.S. in banking deposits. Wachovia was the second-largest American retail brokerage by number of brokers.