Face of cyberbank anything but geek

By IRENE CHAPPLE

Roland Gift does not carry a cellphone and uses internet cafes to check his email.

"You don't have to have everything," says the former Fine Young Cannibals frontman and the new face of Bank Direct in New Zealand.

"I have some other things that other people do not have," he says from London. "I have a bike.

"I know people that have mobiles. If I want to use a mobile I can use theirs and they can use my bike."

Gift last fronted ads for Bank Direct - which does business largely through the internet and over the phone - between 1997 and 2001.

He started the new campaign just over a week ago with an unbranded and enigmatic "Boo".

Gift is well-remembered in New Zealand as the disembodied face of the Bank Direct advertising campaign.

Internationally, he is the man whose unusual voice delivered Fine Young Cannibals' hits such as She Drives Me Crazy and Good Thing.

He was once "sniffy" about advertising. Then he worked with advertising people on his short film, Gaffa Boy. He appreciated their creativity and his attitude towards the industry changed.

Gift has two boys with his New Zealand partner, Louise, and once refused to front a Coca-Cola campaign because he did not want to encourage the kids to drink it.

McDonald's is also out, but beer would be fine, says Gift, because he drinks it.

Bank Direct convinced him - twice - to do his sole advertising campaign. The ads screen in New Zealand only.

Gift has no issues with banking.

"You either put your money in the bank or under a mattress. I put it in a bank myself, and have done for some time."

Bank Direct's central plank is its technology, innovation and its business in cyberspace.

Gift - who likes to sit on the hills of his Coromandel property and gaze at the view - barely uses the internet.

So does he do his own banking online?

The face of New Zealand's cyberbank laughs and says he could not possibly comment.