The celebrity wannabe culture is so strong in the UK that firms regularly use pop culture icons to promote their products and services.

This isn’t new as businesses have been doing this since advertising began, with movie stars and other famous folks holding, wearing, drinking, talking about or otherwise to products.

In banking, Lloyds is the latest to do this.

Last year, the post-bailout Government-owned institution dropped its For the Journey campaign and cartoon characters in favour of real people talking about Moments That Matter.

Moments such as moving out of home, buying your first car, getting married etc. and how the bank was there to dosh out the cash to make such nostalgic moments real!

This has now been extended but the bank has added celebs to the mix – all be it middle-of- the-road and non-offensive celebs (at least to the majority), with the introduction of George Clarke, Dawn O’Porter, Katie Piper and Jimmy Doherty.

I guess it’s hard to be a marketing executive at one of Britain’s major banks. Ads aren’t meant to thrill, they’re meant to appeal to the broad population and make you feel warm and fuzzy, while hopefully dispelling the grudge you have stored up because it wouldn’t give you a business loan when the financial crisis hit?!

And if it’s good enough for George Clark, who seems a decent enough bloke, then it’s good enough for me. In fact maybe these folks at the [INSERT ANY BANK] are actually a nice bunch.

Oh wait, my memory hasn’t faded that much. Aren’t this lot the ones who aggressively missold payment protection insurance on my credit card? Aren’t they the ones who were caught with their hands in the till fixing LIBOR, didn’t they just get sprung for dodgy dealings in the global foreign exchange market?

They’re the Moments That Matter that I remember.