Issue № 93 | London, Sunday 14 April 2024
📸 First, flashback to last week when we looked at Nationwide’s banned advert and I argued marketing should be collaborating earlier and closer with compliance to foster creativity. This week, Nationwide ignored my advice and elected to use AI instead. Oh well, you can lead a horse to water…
👉🏻 Now, read on to learn why:
① Trying to invoke sympathy for a financial services firm is a fool’s errand.
② The best communications are empathetic, candid, informed, and interesting.
③ Smaller asset managers will likely benefit from an about turn on research fees.
④ The world’s central banks continue to investigate the benefits of blockchain.
⑤ Your marketing team should be experimenting with AI. Now.
⑥ The hardest messages to communicate demand candour.
⑦ Cross-selling is as effective across industries as it is across product lines.
What's new
Abrdn’s chief investment officer complained this week that the company is facing “corporate bullying” by the media. That went down as well as you’d expect.
In short:
“In an interview with Financial News, Peter Branner said that the British press mocking the company’s disemvowelled name was taking it a step too far. ‘I understand that corporate bullying to some extent is part of the game with the press, even though it’s a little childish to keep hammering the missing vowels in our name,’ he said. ‘Would you do that with an individual? How would you look at a person who makes fun of your name day in day out? It’s probably not ethical to do it. But apparently with companies it is different’.”
“Developed by branding agency Wolff Olins, the new name is written in lower case and pronounced as ‘Aberdeen’.”
“However, it faced a string of ridicule from the public and press alike, with AJ Bell’s Laith Khalaf saying at the time that it would be leaving investors ‘dazed and confused’. Others compared it to the disastrous rebranding of Royal Mail as Consignia, or to asking Countdown host Rachel Riley for consonants.”
Why it matters
I didn’t bother discussing the Abrdn rebrand with you when it happened. It felt too easy a target. Suffice to say, I’m with the army of branding experts who unanimously declared it a naive disaster. But this latest gaffe from the accident prone firm isn’t about branding at all. It matters because it’s an example of corporate communications that lack the slightest bit of empathy.
① Branner utterly misjudges his audience and so makes two key errors. The first is he erroneously believes he can inspire sympathy for a financial services firm. And he does so by complaining about the press…to the press. Rather than take any ownership, he seeks to blame others. A fool’s errand. No surprise then that it resulted in yet more mocking (and delightfully amusing) press coverage.
The second, arguably much worse, mistake is he bastardises well meaning diversity and inclusion language to try to apply it to his company. ‘Corporate bullying’ means a company bullying or allowing its staff to be bullied. It was never intended to apply to a multi-billion pound company having its poor branding decisions mocked by the free press. And to suggest otherwise is a slap in the face to anyone who has been the victim of actual corporate bullying.
What to do about it
Take action
It’s particularly unfortunate for Branner that he should trip up this week of all weeks, because his pratfall coincides with the publication of Jamie Dimon’s shareholder letter - a piece of corporate comms universally praised by experts. Our action this week then is to be less Branner and more Dimon, whose book-length annual report letters are the closest thing the industry has to a State of the Union.
② The annual letters from the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan have earned Dimon praise, trust and admiration because they’re:
Empathetic: Dimon thoroughly understands the preoccupations of this audience and remains focused on addressing them.
Candid: There is a refreshing honesty and sense of ownership running through Dimon’s letters. He doesn’t sugar coat bad news nor try to deflect blame for mistakes he may have made.
Informed: Dimon is never lax with the facts. His letters give the impression of being considered and full of clear and definite viewpoints on a multitude of issues likely to affect the performance of his bank.
Interesting: By not shying away from being opinionated, Dimon ensures his letters are a good deal more interesting and readable than the vast majority of corporate communications in financial services.
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Top stories
The other articles that are worthy of your time.
FINANCE
FCA proposes to reverse Mifid rules on investment research
③ Smaller asset managers will likely benefit from an about turn on research fees.
“The Financial Conduct Authority on Wednesday said fund managers should be able to ‘bundle’ fees for investment bank research with their trading costs after a review of the controversial practice. Its proposal would row back on an important plank of Mifid II, the EU’s post-2008 financial reforms package, and spearheaded by London’s politicians and regulators.”
“Although the rules were intended to clamp down on conflicts of interest and boost more independent coverage, they led to even less coverage of small and medium-sized stocks. After the UK left the EU, some politicians and Westminster think-tanks encouraged the UK to ditch the rules. EU officials are also rolling back their investment research rules.
“Mifid II rules came into force in 2018 and led to the separation of fees charged by investment banks to asset management clients for trading execution and research. However, this ‘unbundling’ often left asset managers paying upfront for the cost of research, putting greater pressure on smaller companies in particular. Under the proposals, asset managers would be able to choose whether to pay for research separately, or together with other trade services.”
TECHNOLOGY
ECB preps DLT trials for wholesale central bank money settlement
④ The world’s central banks continue to investigate the benefits of blockchain.
“The European Central Bank has put together a host of participants for exploratory work on the use of distributed ledger technology to settle wholesale transactions in central bank money.”
“The first wave of trials will involve 10 market participants, six market DLT operators and five central banks, carrying out tests involving actual settlement in central bank money and experiments with mock settlement in a test environment.”
“The use cases mainly explore the securities settlement cycle, such as delivery-versus-payment, secondary market transactions and lifecycle management of securities. Other options under consideration are related to cross-border payments, such as payment-versus-payment.”
MEDIA & MARKETING
How one marketing team made AI part of its daily work
⑤ Your marketing team should be experimenting with AI. Now.
“AI isn’t just a switch marketers can flip. And there’s often a bit of misplaced shame attached to using it on tasks you could perform yourself. Some ask, ‘If AI can do this, what value am I adding?’ But AI alone isn’t a strategy; it’s a means to an end. For marketers, turning to AI for help should be as natural a habit as Googling. We can build that impulse by deliberately experimenting with new use cases every day. Marketers of all levels should pause at every turn to ask whether AI could make something faster, easier, or better — and then, experiment away.”
“You can start building AI into your routine, too. Use an image generator to liven up brainstorm meetings. Try out a predictive analytics algorithm to anticipate your customers’ questions and craft relevant content based on your daily web queries. Experiment with an AI notetaker on your next conference call. Or ask a chatbot to summarize the LinkedIn post you’ve drafted, to see if your key message is as clear as you think it is.”
“When paired with thoughtful human guidance, AI can be an equalizer and an accelerator. It can enable creative processes to be more specific, more provocative, and nimbler. It helps us to quickly and repeatedly interpret data, guiding our actions for maximum impact with minimal resources. […] When done right, leveraging predictive and generative AI is thoughtful, collaborative work — and it can deliver the results marketers need to achieve success and remain competitive. You just have to start.”
WILDCARD
Six mistakes leaders make when announcing layoffs
⑥ The hardest messages to communicate demand candour.
They’re not transparent about the state of the business.
They’re not clear on the path forward.
They don’t get the tone right.
They don’t offer remaining employees the opportunity to ask questions.
They don’t bring middle management on board.
They don’t show appreciation to departing employees.
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Off cuts
The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter.
FINANCE
💷 Ben Bernanke says BoE must revamp main economic model
💰 BlackRock assets under management hit record $10.5tn
🪓 Lloyds Bank axes risk staff after executives complain they are a ‘blocker’
✂️ Jane Fraser’s overhaul marks Citi results as profits hit by severance costs
🇦🇷 HSBC exits Argentina nursing $1 billion in losses
TECHNOLOGY
🪙 JP Morgan integrates JPM Coin with Kyriba's treasury solution
🤖 Applications of generative AI across banking and financial services
👩🏻💻 Tech vacancies at London financial services firms ‘soar 88%’
🐝 PensionBee losses narrow to £10.7m on new customer boost
🇲🇽 Revolut gains banking licence in Mexico: Eyes cross-border remittance market
MEDIA & MARKETING
🪧 Behind the Thomson Reuters rebrand with its CMO
🔛 What is dynamic marketing strategy and how to get started
🧭 The essential marketers guide to B2B demand generation
🎬 The psychology of short-form content: Why we love bite-sized videos
🔎 Five reasons why a content audit is useful
The last word
⑦ Jean-Claude Biver, watch industry veteran, on selling horology to UBS clients:
“UBS invited me to participate in a Swiss tour for their customers from all over the world. They will be making a stop where I can explain the watch industry. I am always willing to do this. I'm ready to make a speech. I'm ready to meet your people. I'm ready to have a dinner. I'm ready to have lunch. With this, your customers could become one day my customers.”
Don’t settle for marketing.
Strive for InMarketing.
Wishing you a productive week,
P.S. My choice of who to give the last word to may have given it away. If you’re a bit of a watch nerd like me, this week was special.