Howard Brown is a former customer services' representative and current sales ambassador for HBOS plc, which owns both Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank (previously the Halifax Building Society) in the United Kingdom. He is known for his appearances in Halifax television advertisements, often singing and dancing and since has gone back to his normal trade of being a locksmith (under alias Howard Price). He was born in Sheldon, Birmingham, England in 1966.
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Brown rose to fame when Halifax Bank decided to involve their staff in a new series of adverts. The campaign was the brainchild of DLKW Creative Directors Malcolm Green and Gary Betts, who had previously found fame when they launched the Gary Lineker Walkers Crisps campaign. Auditions were held and Brown was selected by Green and Betts to spearhead the new advertising drive for the bank in 2000. This featured several employees singing about the bank to the tunes of well known pop music tracks in films directed by people from the world of pop promos. Brown was the first and most popular of these employees, and has gone on to star in several adverts for Halifax, both in person and in animated form.
His first advert saw him sing "Extra", a song with new lyrics by Malcolm Green, set to the tune of "Sex Bomb" (originally by Mousse T featuring Tom Jones).
Other adverts he has appeared in include:
He has also made cameo appearances in other adverts featuring other employees of HBOS:
In January 2002, an animated version of Brown began appearing in adverts, voiced by Paul Shearer, a London actor and created in conjunction with Paris-based animation stars Numero Six. However, the real Howard Brown has continued to appear in the live-action adverts.
Brown told Reuters that "Being in the advertising campaign has changed my life tremendously. I sometimes feel like a popstar. People recognise me everywhere I go."
In April 2008, it was announced that Brown would not be starring in any more Halifax adverts, with him instead taking a role in its public relations department.[1]
The campaign itself has proved to be one of the most popular and effective advertisement campaigns ever produced in the UK. In 2008, Green and Betts left DLKW and, although a new campaign has recently been released, popular opinion is less than enthusiastic.
In 2005, Brown toured the United Kingdom from bank to bank, giving Halifax customers the chance to meet him.
In 2005, Brown released a cover of the Barry White song You're the First, the Last, My Everything as a charity single. It peaked at number 13 in the UK singles chart.
In 2003, Howard had a cameo in The Office Christmas special. Howard played himself alongside Ricky Gervais as David Brent and Paul "Bubble" Ferguson from Big Brother 2. The three men took part in a night club promotion 'Blind Date' game which was hosted by Mike McClean. Howard and Bubble were getting on much better with the female contestant than Brent, much to his dissatisfaction. When Brown sat down, McLean shouted at the audience "Who gives you extra?" to which they replied "Who Who Who?". This is a reference to the Halifax advert which sings "Who gives you extra?" to the tune of "Who Let the Dogs Out?" by the Baha Men. Brown does not actually sing in that particular advert as it was performed by Matt Thornfield and Howard only appeared in cartoon form.