Andrea Brimmer was once asked how she got her CFO to give her the greenlight to allocate half a million dollars for a customer giveaway during the week of Thanksgiving.
“I said, ‘I didn't ask her because I don't have to,’” Andrea says. “And that wasn't me being facetious or cocky and saying I don't have to get permission from anybody to do anything. But it's me saying she believes in that program as much as I do.”
Andrea is CMO and head of PR for Ally Financial, a completely online financial services company. With the promise of 24/7 support and unique virtual reality (among other) offerings, Ally strives to create meaningful and lasting connections with its customers — and all of Andrea’s work is driven by that mission.
She’s doing something right, because Ally’s CEO has received letters from CEOs of other banks commending the company for its “brilliant” ideas. Because the Ally team is constantly taking risks and concocting creative messaging, Ally’s customers are on board when the bank takes new leaps.
The hallmark of the brand is customer centricity, and with everyone from the CEO to call center employees committed to that core value, Andrea believes the company will continue to succeed.
“My team made Ad Age's 2019 Marketers of the Year list, and the reason I was so proud of that is, as I looked at that list I thought … we're showing up on this list with Apple and with Burger King, and with Allbirds and all these brands that are out there and are doing all this crazy and interesting stuff,” she says.
“We've cracked the code, because we've gotten consumers to think of us in a really different way because of our actions.”
Featured Challenger👱♀️ Name: Andrea Brimmer
⚙️ How she challenges: As the CMO and head of PR at Ally Financial, a financial services company offering car finance, online banking via a direct bank, mortgage loans and more, Andrea isn’t afraid to take risks to engage with customers in a creative way.
💻 Company: Ally Financial
💎 Noteworthy: Andrea’s many honors and accolades include being named a winner of Adweek's 2020 Brand Genius awards for marketers who have skillfully led their brands' messaging to new heights. She was also named to Forbes World's Most Influential CMOs list twice.
🔍 Where to find Andrea: Twitter | LinkedIn
Challenger Wisdom 💡 Take a risk and it just might pay off"We launched in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. And I can still remember so clearly so many people saying to us … ‘Why are you launching a bank right now?’ And that really did become the driving force for us, that idea that the world didn't need another bank, it needed a better bank. And it seems crazy to say this right now, but the year that we launched was the same year that Apple launched the iPhone. So we took this giant bet that everybody was going to bank in the palm of their hands. … the thinking that really charged the brand was, how do we sell for all of these pain points that have existed in the financial services category for over 100 years, that nobody's ever really done anything about? They've talked about it, but they haven't ever really done it. And how can we come to market with some really strong deeds? And not just words?”
💡 Standing out by incentivizing customer service to be truly helpful"We offer 24 by seven service. And we were the first and are still today, one of the only banks that offer 24 by seven service 365 days a year. So at any point in time, you can pick up the phone, and you can talk to a human being. And what we did that was really differentiated is that we rewarded our call center advocates on first touch resolution … most call center advocates are rewarded on how many calls you take throughout the day. Ours were like, look, even if you only answer one call, and it takes you eight hours, as long as you solve that customer's problem in that eight-hour call, you're going to get rewarded or compensated. So those were two really big things we did to create trust.”
💡 Your team’s devotion to the mission is crucial"Everybody owned it. It wasn't just me, it wasn't just marketing. It was the collection of all of the experiences that made the brand the original disrupter that it still is today. And we all feel like our brand is a weapon in a good way. And we need to lean into it. And we need to feed it, and we need to continue to protect it and nurture it. We just have never, as big as we are today — over 10,000 people and multiple locations — lost that focus and that attitude.”
💡 An entirely digital infrastructure requires a new kind of customer connection"We have this incredible digital experience across all of our products, but you know when you're in that situation where I need to talk to somebody, I can't figure this out, or I can't do this without human interaction, that you can do that in a really simplistic way without having to go into a branch. So I think it's really about finding that balance so that you're working on the customer's terms, you're not working on your terms. And I think that's what a lot of brands overlook, oftentimes, which is customer-centric brands think like the customer 24 hours a day. We start every meeting by reading a letter from one of our customers, whether it's good or bad, and just grounding ourselves in this is the reason why we exist. So what are the things that we need to do to push to the next level now?
💡 Don’t box yourself in to one growth strategy"We say our target is anybody with money. And that makes it pretty simple. We're not discriminating in that regard. And as we look to grow, I think it's more of, we're looking to grow across our product set. Today, our savings products are obviously the most dominant product for us. But we have these incredible other products like our invest platform, our mortgage platform, we have personal lending products now. And so that's really where we're looking to grow as to deepen relationships with existing customers, bring more people in, that are open to a wider swath of digital products beyond just parking some money with us, and really kind of growing out that customer set and continuing to acquire new customers in that regard.”
💡 Transparency within a company breeds success“You need to learn how to create followership. I mean, look, we do a lot of pretty out there things from a marketing perspective. And there have been times where my boss has said to me, ‘oh, you're making me very uncomfortable, but I trust you.’ And a lot of that comes from spending time with my business partners, and really letting them understand our strategy and why we're doing what we're doing. spending a lot of time with my CFO I in fact, she and I just had an hour and a half call together last week. And we do that on the regular, where I'm not trying to move the deckchairs around or hide things from her. I want her to have full transparency into everything that I'm doing and why.”
💡 How to get your customers to engage in creative ways"Disruptors have a really simple brief: find interesting ways to get people to engage with their money. And so we've done things like hid 10 Ally-branded pennies in 10 cities across the country, and created a scavenger hunt for those pennies. We've done things like creating a virtual reality game, that was an app that you had to download and you had to tell us your savings story. And the catch was that the app only worked during the commercial breaks of the Superbowl, so it was a really cool way to interrupt people's Superbowl commercials. We've done interesting things like … create an island on ‘Animal Crossing’ last year that actually was so popular, it broke the game for three days. Those are the things that I'm most proud of, because they were all highly focused on getting people to engage with their money in interesting ways. And they have created a very different place for this brand than any other brand in this category.”
💡 Remaining centered in your personal life centers your business"I'm a person that believes in a couple things. One, I believe in deeds, not words. And that's a personal ethos that drives me every single day. And I think you have to demonstrate through your actions what you preach. And I think when I do that, I'm at my best. I'm a big believer in a strong body equals a strong mind. So I think when you keep yourself physically fit, physically strong, I think it creates creativity, and it creates inertia for you. I think that there's just something about that physical strength that gives you mental strength, where you don't worry. And lastly, I think I drink a lot of wine and that definitely helps.”
Top quotes from the episode:Andrea Brimmer:
Quote #1
“We don't think like bankers. I don't think like a marketer. I try and think like a human being. What do I want? What do my kids want? What do my parents want from a banking experience? And how can we create those experiences or those solutions, and that really was the key for us.”
Quote #2
“Our CEO, Jeff Brown, always says ‘money is one of the most important things in a person's life, and the care for that is entrusted to us. It's a big responsibility, and we have to be mindful of that.’ And that's the approach that we really try and take when we're trying to create these relationships with customers.”
Quote #3
“I think [bravery] means living your life leading from the front. And I think it also means leading your life and your career with gusto and not fear.”