2012: ADVICE TO THE FINANCIAL CMO: Twelve Recommendations

ADVICE TO THE FINANCIAL CMO: 12 Recommendations For 2012
by Bill Wreaks, Chief Analyst, The Gramercy Institute
 

 

 
 
 
 
 

SUMMARY ADVICE TO FINANCIAL CMO’S (full recommendations below)

 
1)     CONTENT: Tap Content-As-Marketing To Achieve Objectives
2)     MOBILE & TABLET: Reach Your Customers On Their Terms
3)     OPTIMIZE: Measure Results—And Use Them!
4)     DIGITAL CORE: Place Digital at The Center of Your Marketing
5)     INNOVATION: Innovate to Connect with New (and Old) Customers
6)     SOCIAL MEDIA: Express Thyself—And Listen!
7)     THE FINANCIAL BRAND: Rebuild Customer Trust
8)     COMPLIANCE: Get Friendly With Compliance.
9)     NEW TEAM: Build A Team Now For Tomorrow’s Needs
10) INSIDE-OUT: Know Who You Are & Market it.
11) SERVICE: Focus On A Provable Message
12) INTEGRATE: Integrate Your Media
 
 
Welcome to financial marketing in 2012. Buckle-up now. Hold on tight. This is going to be a thrilling ride! 
 
In Q4 of 2011, Jamie DePeau, corporate Chief Marketing Officer of Lincoln Financial Group addressed the Gramercy Institute’s JFAM:Live Financial Marketers’ Conference in NYC.  There, she pointed out the unusual set of circumstances that financial marketers will face in the year ahead. 
 
First, is the issue of unprecedented levels market volatility in financial markets; US and global. Today, financial marketers must respond to market conditions on a daily (if not hourly) basis—and the increased market volatility that we see today adds a layer of unpredictability to the financial marketers’ world. Furthermore, today’s interconnectivity of all major global markets calls for financial marketers around the world to respond to market activity far beyond domestic markets.
 
Second, fair or unfair, there is an acute recession of trust in financial services firms today.  When the financial firm is automatically the bad guy, marketers today not only face serious brand (re)building challenges for themselves—but our industry as well.
 
The third environmental factor that financial marketers must now address, said DePeau, is the abrupt change that our industry is now facing brought about by advances in media technology along with new and increased levels of demand on the part of financial services customers.  While a huge part of this change (i.e.: tablet marketing, content marketing, social marketing, mobile channels) spells opportunity for financial marketers—it also represents a considerable amount  for financial marketers to get their heads around so quickly. There are a number of factors (i.e.: regulations, compliance, staffing, partnerships and vendor relations) that top financial marketers need to revisit.
 
Laurine Garrity, Chief Marketing Officer of Charles Schwab & Company, addressed the Gramercy Institute’s JFAM Financial Marketing Summit: WEST in San Francisco a few weeks ago. She pointed out a very similar set of environmental factors that financial marketers today now face.  Garrity, like DePeau, looks at 2012 with great optimism and looks forward to taking on new challenges in 2012 in new ways in, arguably (my words now) a “new world for financial marketers.”
 
As we enter 2012, I predict that this year will be characterized by great levels of positive change in financial services marketing—for those financial brands that are willing to change.  Here’s my twelve recommendations that I direct to the marketing leaders of the world’s top financial brands for a productive and successful 2012.  Each recommendation is exemplified by a brand that I feel demonstrates each best practice at work.
 
Here we go:
 
CONTENT: Tap Content-As-Marketing To Achieve Objectives
Best Practice To Consider: Bank of America Merrill Lynch
 
Today, content is king.  Now go market with it. Content-as-marketing is a white-hot topic in financial marketing today.  Many point to Merrill Lynch as a leader in the field.  Their content is the “service” that keep their advisors together and their customers informed.  Beyond, these network-shared insights, BAML team produces a number of informational pieces across all media to fortify the ML brand, empower their customers and bring others under their tent.
 
 
MOBILE & TABLET: Reach Your Customers On Their Terms
Best Practice To Consider: Putnam Funds
 
Think Platform.  Putnam Funds recognizes who their clients are—and what these clients need to do their job well.  When a good many of Putnam’s clients’ clients have, use and rely on digital tablets for their own information, the leadership at Putnam repointed their insights and research materials toward the tablet to better empower their advisors to help customers. The result: everyone in the Putnam value chain is happy (including Putnam).
 
 
OPTIMIZE: Measure Results—And Use Them!
Best Practice To Consider: TD Ameritrade
 
Data is noise.  Analysis is insight.  Measurement of marketing is not enough.  It’s what you do with it that counts.   TD Ameritrade measures just about every inch of their marketing against clear cut objectives.  When something works it works—when it stops working they’re nimble enough to change course in mid-stream.  Call it “marketing pragmatism.”  Call it whatever you like.  I call it smart marketing in 2012.  And it works.
 
 
DIGITAL CORE: Place Digital at The Center of Your Marketing
Best Practice To Consider: OppenheimerFunds
 
It’s more than a medium.  Digital should be at the core of all financial marketing.  No firm gets this concept better than OppenheimerFunds.  “Our culture is digital. Everything we do in marketing has digital at its core,” says marketing leadership there.  My take, marketing today must be more than a one-way outbound message.  It should be an integrated, measureable, cross-company endeavor—that speaks back when you listen. Q:  Where does this digital culture come from?  A: From the top down.
 
 
INNOVATION: Innovate to Connect with New (and Old) Customers
Best Practice To Consider: Discover Financial
 
Many financial firms that exemplify innovation at work in financial marketing.  There are also many who don’t and prefer to follow rather than lead. I believe that in 2012, the “safe bet” of choosing not to stick your neck out is actually the most dangerous path to take.  In 2012, we will see a separation of the wheat from the chaff in financial marketing leadership. To those who understand both the challenges and opportunities at this time in our industry and choose to innovate will become part of the new leadership.
 
Discover Financial won the JFAM Media Strategy Award for “Innovation in Media” in 2011. The company pushed the envelope for their card services through developing innovative point-of-sale channels screen advertising.  As a result, the card company was able to make messages immediately actionable to card customers. It could also extend  broad television and radio campaigns to the transactional level where consumers actively chose their payment method.
 
 
SOCIAL MEDIA: Express Thyself—And Listen!
Best Practice to Consider: Intuit
 
Brand Expression is good.  Listening to customers is great! To understand the power of social marketing in financial services, marketers need to get past the fact that “it’s all about them.”  The truth, it’s all about the customer.  First and foremost, messaging has got to be of interest to readers—it can involve the brand, but not be simply about the brand.  Secondly, and most importantly, social media is also a listening channel for financial marketers and is a powerful customer referendum device for product insight, service feedback and marketing awareness.  Social is different kind of animal.  Intuit understands the real power of social—and they have been refining their skills in this area for years.  For best practice advice on how to do it right in financial, look to Intuit’s numerous social media endeavors to get their customers (and potentials) engaged in their brand. 
 
 
 
THE FINANCIAL BRAND: Rebuild Customer Trust
Best Practice To Consider: Edward Jones
 
Trust is the new black in the financial brand.  Big and old are out are no longer brand attributes than mean something (positive). Edward Jones Investing is a St. Louis-based financial advisory with 7 million investors throughout the US and Canada that understands the importance of trust—and the strategic importance of separating its advisor network from the pack through a sincere approach to marketing.  Its TV ad theme resonates through virtually all creative executions they put out as Edward Jones hammers home the value of the face-to-face advisor relationship through its sincere stern, stark and intense “average Joe” style ads.  EJ’s promise to the world is “making sense of investing,” which is a both a lofty goal as well as a smart proposition in an ever-confusing financial world. To view their face-to-face ad: EDWARD JONES AD
 
 
 
COMPLIANCE : Get Friendly With Compliance.
Best Practice To Consider: TIAA-CREF
 
TIAA-CREF had been known over the past 80 years as one of the most conservative investment companies in the industry. As one senior executive described, “we’re guys in suits.” If so, then how did TIAA-CREF assemble one of the first and most innovative social media centers for its customer base?  A key driver: marketing got friendly with compliance—and vice versa.  The result: both teams came together for their “greater good.”
 
 
NEW TEAM:  Build A Team Now For Tomorrow’s Needs
Best Practice To Consider: Charles Schwab & Co.
 
I see two trends taking shape from a team building point of view--both on either extreme of the talent spectrum, both equally critical to the marketing success of the financial firm moving forward into the future: “Data Analysis” and “Story Telling.” Gordy Abel, Executive Director, Digital Marketing at JPMorgan Chase recently explained, “In 2012, it’s all about understanding the “data, data, data!”  The second half of my team-building success formula in 2012 supports the notion that a financial brand today—with all the competing marketplace noise—has got to tell its story, and it’s got to tell it well.  “Today, you’ve got to tell your story,” explained Andy Aerenberg, Global Head of ETF Distribution at Russell Investments. In short, in 2012, successful marketing leaders will build their teams up and out based on both these two different—though related—skill areas.  So, who’s doing both really well?  Charles Schwab comes immediately to mind. This financial leader has—and continues to build—robust data analysis capabilities. Simultaneously, the Schwab marketing team demonstrates that if there’s a good story to tell, they can tell it well.  In short, they’ve got  teammates that can assess and learn from their marketing —and a team that can apply their learning to best tell their story.  Schwab’s “Talk to Chuck” campaign has provided a versatile platform for Charles Schwab to get their story out to all areas of their business. 
 
 
INSIDE-OUT: Know Who You Are & Market it.
Best Practice To Consider: Lincoln Financial Group
 
“Mad Men” is only a TV show.  Madison Avenue cannot create a brand anymore.  Consumers are too informed (and too cynical)  to allow this to happen.  If your front line doesn’t reflect your tag line—your brand could be the laughing stock of financial services.  For this reason, for example, Citi no longer uses its then-highly successful “Live Richly” theme. Today, a financial brand must reflect the principles and passions of the company.  I’m not just talking about a reflection of senior management. The brands of today’s leading financial firms must reflect the character and beliefs of the entire company, across the entire enterprise. “Internal marketing is critical to the success of a campaign,” explained one senior Bank of America brand executive to me.
 
Lincoln Financial Group for example, debuted it’s new “You’re In Charge” marketing platform on national TV in late 2011.  But before they did, they launched a major internal campaign targeting Lincoln Financial’s 8,000 employees. Once the team was on board, Lincoln used launch events, promotional products, and the help of influential employees in the company to spread the campaign through its various cross country operations.  Lincoln Financial understands to the power and efficiency of inside out marketing. View Interview with Lincoln Financial CMO Jamie DePeau as she explains the “You’re In Charge” campaign.
 
 
 
SERVICE: Focus On A Provable Message
Best Practice To Consider: Ally Bank
 
Service matters today—as it is service (not promises) that can build trust.  In other words, it’s not enough to say “trust me” these days.  Financial marketers must focus on deliverable promises.  With this in mind, excellent customer service is a smart benefit for a financial brand to feature as long as it can deliver on the promise.  Ally Bank focuses on strong customer service in a new ad that (cynically) places a blender on the counter of a retail establishment to point out how fruitless it can be to talk to a machine.  Their reference of course speaks to the point that Ally Bank believes  “that customers should be able to speak to a service representative when they want and how they want—online or by phone," says Sanjay Gupta, chief marketing officer of Ally Financial. " "Our approach to customer service has proven effective as shown by our regular customer satisfaction rates at almost 90 percent," added Gupta.  To view this ad:  ALLY BANK AD
 
 
INTEGRATE: Integrate Your Media
Best Practice To Consider: Liberty Mutual
 
It’s not all about digital—or any other medium for that matter. It’s about integration that works. Two plus two can equal thirty-eight if all the components of a media strategy don’t just work together, but build upon one another.  I remember the days when a financial firm running an online ad was considered pushing the envelope of “what should be done.” Now, digital media has caught fire in financial. But it’s not really doing all it can do unless it works in harmony with other media.  Those who integrate (truly integrate) their media platforms represent the future of financial media and marketing. Liberty Mutual has done it and done it well in its “Responsibility” campaign.  TV, print, online, outdoor radio and promotions.  It’s genius to see it all work together synergistically (to whole being greater than the sum of its ingredients)—and it’s really good business.
 
Welcome to financial marketing in 2012. It is going to be an interesting (and exciting) year!
 
 
 
 
About Bill Wreaks & The Gramercy Institute
Bill Wreaks is CEO and Chief Analyst of The Gramercy Institute—a think tank for senior marketers from major financial firms. 
 
Wreaks moderates over one hundred in-depth panel discussions each year on financial services marketing.  With a few exceptions, these panels consist exclusively of senior marketers from major financial firms.  These discussions cover both b-to-b and consumer sides of financial marketing with equal vigor.  Wreaks points out that “both sides of the business can (and do) learn from one another.” View Gramercy Institute Financial Marketing Conference & Summit Calendar
 
Also, the Gramercy Institute researches and releases a number of thought pieces, white papers and research studies each year on subjects related to financial marketing.  The Gramercy Institutes’ next study, “The Future of Financial Marketing: Owned, Earned & Purchased,” will be released in February.
 
The Gramercy Institute also produces The JFAM Financial Media Strategy Awards each year. These awards honor excellence in financial media strategy from the leading brands in the industry.  The awards are judged by dozens of senior financial marketers each year. Now in in its seventh year, The Gramercy Institute has a reference base of close to 300 media briefs written by the world’s top financial brands. View Info and Judges: JFAM Financial Media Strategy Awards
 
For a full listing of Gramercy Institute study releases, conferences, summits and events, go to: www.financialmarketer.com. Or contact, info@financialadvertising.com; 212.752.0151 (NYC) , 415.839.0046 (San Francisco).
 

 

Financial Marketer:

Bill Wreaks, Chief Analyst, The Gramercy Institute

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