Big oil, big agri, big pharma, big data … Today every industry has its bogeyman collective; the consensus being that beyond a certain size, principle and profit are incompatible.

The banking sector is no different and so in their advertising the banks tend to downplay their bigness; to look less institutional and more human. And we're served up politically correct slogans like "The world's local bank" and "More give less take" and "Life is about more than money".

It doesn't have to be this way. There are plenty of reasons why the big banks shouldn't be afraid to tout their size.

But you can see why they might shy away from it and go for the human message. Intense competition mean there's not that great a difference between the banks' core offerings. So if you're torn between A's home loan and B's home loan, seeing that B has a social conscience might tip the scales. Ditto if there's no difference between the deposit rates offered by C and D, but C's ads make you smile.

But I'd be surprised if many Australian consumers buy into the Julia-Roberts-Notting-Hill subtext: "We're not a huge profit-driven corporation, we're just ordinary people, standing here in front of you, asking you to like us."

And frankly, it wouldn't be in those banks' interests if people did buy into that. Because however much we bag the big banks, none of us really wants to be a customer of a small one. Not after what happened on Wall St nine years ago, and the tsunami of misery it triggered. Americans may have just entrusted their economy to a businessman who's filed for bankruptcy four times, but they would never have given the job to a banker.

Strong regulations

Not many Australians, by contrast, are worried about the Goldman Sachs section on Malcolm Turnbull's CV, and the closest most of us came to the GFC at the time was our television screens. Thanks to some of the world's most stringent compliance laws Australian banks didn't get sucked into the subprime maelstrom, so none of them failed, and none had to be bailed out by taxpayers.

Yet today our banks feel so on the nose with consumers that they recently felt the need to take out double-page newspaper advertisements that explain in exhaustive detail all the things they're going to do to get their house in order and "earn our trust". 

But the fact is we have less cause to be distrustful of our banks than just about any other developed nation. As reprehensible as the CommInsure and OnePath debacles were, they're minor misdemeanours compared to the sustained complicity of many household-name US corporations in the GFC. 

We don't need our banks to be our friends. We expect them to be ethical, and it's nice if they support causes and help communities. But what we really want from them today is the same as we've always wanted: Choice and innovation in product offering underpinned by the long-term stability that comes with good governance.

It's hardly surprising that the banks which have ticked those boxes have grown, and that the bigger they've grown the more choice and innovation they've been able to offer.

Advertising that reminded people of the benefits that come with bigness would not intimidate but reassure. 

Big doesn't have to mean bad.

Simon Collins is chief creative officer of 1 Kent Street. It has been 20 years since he worked on the famous "Which bank?" commercials for CBA.