They also followed this up with stickers placed on bananas in Co-operative Food stores, with the phrase ‘Top Banana’ (‘bananas’ originally being a slang term for money), followed by the smile URL.
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They also launched a series of web shorts, all aimed at promoting smile's automatic cancellation from the customer's previous bank. In 2000, smile launched a national rollout and a UK-wide ad campaign, featuring the song ‘Smile’ by The Supernaturals, under the authority of David Conway, the Co-Operative Bank's then-executive director of marketing. This included turning down business, including accounts for known arms dealers, cosmetic businesses which test on animals, and companies which affect the environment with dangerous chemicals. In 2008, Smile launched an ethical policy vote, giving customers the opportunity to change the things that matter most to them. This was followed by Smile sponsoring the North West Comedy Awards in 2005. The first half of 2003 improved on the previous year, up 10% on 2002.Īs part of this community outreach, Smile sponsored the Cape2cape challenge in 2004, where a team flew from the tip of Chile to the coast of Canada in a single plane.
In 2003 there were record interim pre-tax profits for the tenth consecutive year. In 2002, Smile also launched Sharedealing to help experienced and new investors build an online portfolio, with 24-hour access. Additionally, the "Internet Made Easy" magazine rated smile as ‘simply the best of the web’.Ģ001 saw Smile launch ‘Smile invest’, a collaboration with Fidelity Fundsupermarket which gave smile customers even more opportunity to expand their financial portfolios, and compare more shares and stocks.
In July 2000, ".uk" rated smile highly in terms of accessibility, citing its ‘excellent interest rates, top functionality, nice appearance and lots of clear, helpful information in plain English’. The Smile brand was launched in October 1999.