Issue № 92 | London, Sunday 7 April 2024
📸 First, flashback a month to IWD when we talked about the need to hire and pay women. This week, it seems Goldman Sachs aren’t avid IMTW readers.
👉🏻 Now, read on to learn why:
① Creativity without compliance will be in vain.
② The sooner Compliance is involved, the more collaborative the process can be.
③ UK retail investors have little interest in stocks - unlike their US counterparts.
④ The UK is preparing financial market processes for digital assets.
⑤ Alignment between marketing and sales is critical yet often overlooked.
⑥ The urgency for bold and transformative leadership is greater than ever.
⑦ Doing your best work is more powerful than strategy in creating opportunity.
What's new
The Advertising Standards Authority banned Nationwide’s latest ad this week. CityAM reports:
In short:
“Adverts for Nationwide starring actor Dominic West have been banned by the advertising regulator in their current form for misleading consumers that the lender would not close branches like its rivals. The Advertising Standards Authority launched an investigation into the television, radio and press ads after hearing from 281 complainants, including rival high street lender Santander.”
“In the TV ad that aired last October and November, West plays the role of a fictional bank boss at ‘A.N.Y. BANK’, mocking customers, expensing a lavish company lunch and planning a branch closure.”
“After seeing a Nationwide building across the street and a colleague noting that it was not closing its branch, West’s character says: ‘We’re not Nationwide, are we? We’re nothing like them.’ The advert ends with a voiceover saying: ‘Unlike the big banks, we’re not closing our branches,’ while on-screen text reads: ‘Publicly shared branch closures at Lloyds, Bank of Scotland/Halifax, Natwest, Barclays, Santander and HSBC’.”
Why it matters
This matters because it’s a such a shame. It’s so rare in financial services that anyone makes an advert that’s edgy, clever, and entertaining. The Nationwide campaign is all of that. But sadly making a great ad isn’t enough. You also have to make one that won’t fall foul of the many rules finance firms are bound by.
This is a challenge any financial marketer knows all too well: it’s hard to flex those creative muscles with your Compliance team looking on. But look on they should because a mistake doesn’t just mean your campaign could be banned, it could also lead to fines, legal action, and penalties so severe they jeopardise your business.
① In a regulated sector, creativity can’t exist in a vacuum. This ad is creative, it’s funny, it’s courageous, it’s great. But that one big promise that went unchecked (“unlike the big banks, we’re not closing our branches”), means all the creativity was in vain.
What to do about it
Take action
② Seasoned financial marketers all know this: it pays to involve Compliance early. Whether you’re devising a social media strategy, rethinking your marketing collateral, or writing an ad campaign, the sooner your colleagues from Compliance are involved, the more collaborative the process can be. Leave it too late and you risk a simple ‘no’.
With Compliance by your side, by all means start thinking creatively, but remember:
Humour: Client communications absolutely should be more accessible and more human. It's right to make them more conversational to connect better with your audiences. And using humour is a great way to do that.
Substantiation: No empty promises, no claims you can’t prove. Be precise with your language, there’s a huge difference between saying a product “will” do something and saying it “can” do something.
Disclaimers: Yes, they’re dull, no nobody ever reads them, but they’re there for a reason.
Get help
InMarketing is a dynamic repository of ideas, insights and other help for senior leadership teams in finance or technology who want to drive growth. Please have a browse and let me know what you think.
Help me
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Top stories
The other articles that are worthy of your time.
FINANCE
Why buying company shares has gone out of fashion
③ UK retail investors have little interest in stocks - unlike their US counterparts.
“Individual investors are increasingly of the opinion that they should use open-ended collective investment schemes such as mutual funds to invest in equity markets, rather than investing directly in the underlying securities.”
“The rise in the popularity of passive funds has exacerbated this herd mentality which has led to a significant collapse in direct retail participation in UK equity markets.”
“Since 1963, UK retail investor participation in Britain’s equity markets has fallen from 54 per cent to 10.8 per cent in 2022, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.”
TECHNOLOGY
BofE and FCA issue draft guidance on Digital Securities Sandbox
④ The UK is preparing financial market processes for digital assets.
“UK regulators are inviting feedback on draft guidance for firms looking to enter the country's new Digital Securities Sandbox.”
“The DSS will modify regulations in the UK to enable financial market participants to use new technology - such as distributed ledger technology - in the trading and settlement of digital securities such as shares and bonds.”
“Successful applicants to the DSS will be able to provide securities depository and settlement services and operate a trading venue under those modified regulations. For the first time, they will be able to provide these services from a single legal entity.”
MEDIA & MARKETING
B2B marketing stats to know this year
⑤ Alignment between marketing and sales is critical yet often overlooked.
There are 47 stats in the article; the ones that surprised me the most are:
Only “15% of B2B marketers highlighted aligning sales and marketing (smarketing) as their biggest issue, with keeping up with trends, generating traffic and leads, and lack of high-quality data coming in at a close second at 14% each.”
Only “16% of B2B marketers say that lead generation is the primary marketing goal for 2024.”
"29% of marketers said [alignment with sales] benefits lead quality, while 26% each have selected customer experience and strategy execution as one of their biggest benefits of sales-marketing alignment. If the machine isn’t well-oiled, calamity ensues. 39% say the biggest damage comes in the form of lost revenue, while 38% believe the poor impression it leaves is crucial."
WILDCARD
Is your business strategy bold enough?
⑥ The urgency for bold and transformative leadership is greater than ever.
“Objectively assess your company’s position.
Getting to the truth of whether your strategy is bold enough requires deeply and objectively studying your position, as well as what competitors are doing — and not rationalizing away their advantages.”
“Lean into reinvention.
Business model reinvention can include transforming a traditional product to be subscription-based or software-enabled, looking at customer channels and removing intermediaries, or expanding the value chain into other segments. No matter how you choose to reinvent, remember to keep sight of your purpose, leverage your strengths, and remain agile.”
“Assess your leadership team alignment.
While the concept of leadership alignment is nothing new, what is new is how interconnected the leadership agenda has become. Business model reinvention cannot happen if your leadership team isn’t clear on the mission and how to work together to get it executed and then scale it.”
“Take action.
Bold agendas are needed, and they are not about choosing a great technology or getting caught up in the GenAI craze (though GenAI should inspire us to be bold).”
The Artificial Intelligence Spotlight 🔦
Capsule: A video editor for content and marketing teams.
Persuva: Create persuasive, high-converting ad copy to maximize your growth.
RenderNet: Generate AI images with consistent faces.
Off cuts
The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter.
FINANCE
📊 JPMorgan Chase unveils digital media platform
🤖 Morgan Stanley installs AI chief
👏🏻 Santander appoints head of retail banking and transformation
🏘️ Lloyds, Natwest, Nationwide invest in DLT real estate firm Coadjute
🦖 Royal London CEO: ‘We can’t resist the digital advice trend forever’
TECHNOLOGY
⛓️ Blockchain, CBDCs and programmable payments
🌍 BIS’ Project Agorá to explore the tokenisation of cross-border payments
👩🏻🔧 Small advice firms urged to build a 'technology network'
🪙 Ripple to issue stablecoin backed 100% by cash equivalents
☁️ Sopra launches cloud-based instant payments solution
MEDIA & MARKETING
😰 Trying to manage a PR crisis? Here’s some advice
🔮 Future-proofing martech strategies against macro forces
👨🏼💻 Why influencer marketing is critical in B2B
📰 Journalists are happy to be disconnecting from platforms
🎤 Unlocking B2B growth with event-led strategies
The last word
⑦ Emma Walmsley, GSK CEO and Microsoft board member, on building a successful career:
“Worry less about having a strategy for your career and worry a lot about loving the job you are in and being the best at it... that's how you unlock opportunity.”
Don’t settle for marketing.
Strive for InMarketing.
Wishing you a productive week,
P.S. Are you any good at DIY? My wobbly desk and I might need your help.