InMarketing This Week

This week / What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

This week

📰 Don’t be alarmed, dear reader, you haven’t dramatically overslept. I’m running two experiments this week:

I’m sending out the newsletter at six in the morning rather than the evening, so you can slot it wherever it fits best in your Sunday routine.

I’ll be LIVE on Twitter this evening to discuss anything you find interesting in this week’s issue. Please join my Twitter Space at 5:00pm London time.

📸 Flashback: At the beginning of May, we covered why fighting against something will help you stand out. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella agrees. This week, he used the Windows 11 launch event to position his company as the ‘anti-Apple’.

👉🏻 Now, read on to learn why…

① Every social media platform cedes power to rivals over time.

② It’s not clever to pump out the same content across networks.

③ You need a different approach for each channel.

④ Transaction banking isn’t sexy but it is reliably profitable - and catching on.

⑤ Robo advisers have had their day but the future for hybrid advice looks bright.

⑥ Every major social medium now has an audio product, just as interest wanes.

⑦ Your customer should be the hero of your marketing.

This week / What’s new? / Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s new?

The FT’s Elaine Moore wrote an opinion piece pondering whether, as millennials reach middle-age, Instagram may be losing its money-making ability.

① In short:

“The millennials who made Instagram into a phenomenon are creeping towards middle age. Uploading selfies requires time and effort they no longer have to spare. It might even feel embarrassing.”

“Posts from friends are disappearing, replaced by brand campaigns. Influencers, a breed of online celebrity created to flog things to followers, have taken over the app.”

“Every social media platform cedes power to rivals over time. But for years, Instagram has defined the sector. Instagram must now hope that its user base is big enough to avoid MySpace-style irrelevance.”

This week | What’s new? / Why does it matter? / What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

Why does it matter?

As much as I’d love to see Covid slay Instagram, I think it’s unlikely. The truth is that the Facebook-owned app will morph before Covid does and survive just fine. It’s done so before. Instagram isn’t what it was a year ago or a year before that. The nature of social media is to change because they’re all chasing eyeballs and have no purity of purpose or loyalty to their original design. So, Moore’s piece matters because it reminds us how quickly the social landscape moves and it should prompt us to think about what that means for our marketing efforts.

With audiences frequently migrating from one hot app to the next, with the focus and sometimes capabilities of those apps evolving weekly (see Media & Marketing below), it’s easy for marketers to conclude that they need to be spreading their message across as many media as possible if they’re going to be sure of reaching their audiences. I disagree.

② If the dynamic nature of social media teaches us anything it’s that focus and consistency are key. The apps will evolve over time but that’s why we should be clear about what we’re trying to achieve - who we’re trying to reach, how we’re going to do it and why - on each one. Contrary to what you might think from watching many large brands on social, there’s nothing clever about pumping out the same content on every social network.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? / What’s next? / What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s next?

Take action

Check in with your marketing team this week. When it comes to social media, are they focused or chasing the crowd? You’ll never build a following if you spread yourself thin with the same content across multiple social media channels.

③ Have the courage of your convictions. Articulate your objectives, then choose a channel for each one. That means a different approach, sometimes different messaging and certainly different types of content for every channel. I can't tell you what’s best for your business without knowing more about it but here’s some advice I offered an investment firm recently:

Facebook: Relaxed and familiar, this is a place to reach private clients by sharing helpful financial planning and interesting lifestyle content.

Instagram: Focused on attractive visuals, this is an appropriate channel to appeal to employees - both present and future - by sharing behind the scenes looks at the brand and stories about what it’s like to work here.

Twitter: Perfect for growing awareness and building relationships with journalists, analysts and pundits. The key is to engage with them.

LinkedIn: The more buttoned-up, professional network, it can be used for reaching advisers, charities and institutional investors by demonstrating investment expertise and hinting at ideas they would benefit from.

YouTube: A great place to increase the reach of video content to all audiences.

Get help

I’m looking for a full-time, in-house role but in the post-Covid age of depleted marketing budgets and remote teams with skills gaps, many organisations need marketing and communications support that’s agile, flexible, and risk free. That’s why I founded WhatsNext Partners.

Whether it be as a permanent member of your team or with 'on demand' support, let me know if you need my help.

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If you found this post useful or know someone who would, please like, comment on, or - best of all - share it using the buttons below. It really helps.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? / What else? / Quotable | One more thing

What else?

Three other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCE

Goldman opens UK transaction bank to offset trading volatility

④ Transaction banking isn’t sexy but it is reliably profitable. Shhhh…it’s catching on.

“Goldman Sachs will start offering transaction banking services in the UK this week, as it continues to expand in Britain as part of a drive to diversify beyond its dominant trading and advisory businesses.”

“Goldman says the transaction bank, which offers services such as cash management and treasury to businesses, has already won 250 clients and $35bn in deposits, putting it ahead of schedule on a five-year plan to attract $50bn of client money and win $1bn of new revenue.”

“In addition to retail banking, chief executive David Solomon has made it a priority to generate more stable and predictable revenues from commercial banking, to offset the volatility of the trading businesses.”

TECHNOLOGY

Advisers launch a tech revolution to tap the wider market

⑤ Robo advisers have had their day but the future for hybrid advice looks bright.

“British names including Charles Stanley, M&G Wealth and Tilney Smith & Williamson are jumping into the market with stripped down advice offerings delivered using a hybrid of online tools and personal consultations, often via video call.”

“The wealth industry has been criticised for decades over the ‘advice gap’ that leaves consumers with too little wealth unable to access financial advice. Only 8 per cent of UK adults take formal financial advice, according to the Financial Conduct Authority.”

“The crux of the challenge is to find the right points to put the human in and the right point to be digital. The more digital we can make it, the lower the cost for the customer,” says Richard Caldicott, deputy chief executive of M&G Wealth.

MEDIA & MARKETING

Facebook’s Clubhouse competitor is here

⑥ Every major social medium now has an audio product…just as interest wanes.

“Facebook’s Clubhouse competitor, Live Audio Rooms, is making its way stateside. The company announced today that some US-based public figures, as well as certain groups, can start hosting rooms through the main Facebook iOS app.”

“There’s no cap on the number of listeners allowed in — a major shot at Clubhouse, which imposes room size limitations.”

“Unlike Clubhouse, which drew in early listeners by giving them auditory access to Silicon Valley hot shots, Facebook is hoping to cast a broader net of influencers with Live Audio Rooms. Among the named public figures who will have access to the feature on launch will be musicians; media figures; and athletes.”

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? / Quotable / One more thing

Quotable

⑦ Anamika Gupta, Head of Customer Marketing, Fujitsu Americas speaking on an online panel organised by The Drum, to discuss the latest developments in B2B marketing and what marketers need to do to stay competitive:

“I’m a big movie fan and, in most movies, there is a hero with a problem, who then finds a mentor or guide to help them. The guide shows the hero how to develop their strength and go conquer the world. Sometimes in B2B marketing storytelling, we forget that our customer is the hero of the story and we are playing the part of the guide.”

One more thing…

The UK's fintech scene has become much less London-centric over the last couple of years, with the likes of Manchester, Cardiff and Glasgow developing into thriving hubs, according to a report from Findexable. Finextra has the details.

Off cuts

The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter:

🤕 Monday: Somewhat confusingly, Revolut sees profits soar as customer numbers nearly double in lockdown boost and yet losses at Revolut double to £207m as revenue growth slows, while Revolut boss expects digital bank to remain profitable

👩🏼‍💼 Monday: Waverton hires new marketing head from Schroders

💵 Tuesday: This little-known payments start-up is now Europe’s third-biggest fintech

👨🏻‍💻 Wednesday: Refinitiv launches platform for wealth management firms and their active trader customers

🤑 Wednesday: State Street plans crypto ETF back-office ‘land grab’

🙉 Wednesday: Why we shouldn’t listen to crypto ‘experts’

🤝 Thursday: Visa to acquire open banking platform Tink in €1.8bn deal

📈 Thursday: Vanguard steps up push into financial advice

🏈 Thursday: Does your fund manager have skin in the game?

💸 Friday: Value for money a priority for wealth managers’ clients

👀 Friday: Most wealth managers look the other way as clients bet on cryptos

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This week / What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable

This week

Read on to learn why:

① Client centricity won’t help your brand stand out from the crowd.

② Showing is better than telling when it comes to core values.

③ If you don’t respect your audience they’ll feel insulted rather than valued.

④ Early Nutmeg investors are rejoicing but robo-advisers are no closer to profit.

⑤ The future of financial services is digital. Yet another survey says so.

⑥ Social audio is getting crowded but returning to the office makes ‘live’ a hard sell.

⑦ Wise is about to test an alternative route to public markets for UK tech businesses.

This week / What’s new? / Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable

What’s new?

Investment Week reports that advice network Beaufort Financial's discretionary fund manager arm Beaufort Investment rebranded to YOU Asset Management this week.

In short:

“The rebrand has been designed to provide the company, which exists within the Beaufort Group, with its own identity, with a focus on client interests and outcomes.”

“While the firm's name and visual style has changed, it has retained its full team and product range.”

“YOU chief executive officer Derrick Dunne said the new name was inspired by the firm's clients: ‘We have always believed that if we operate in the best interests of our clients, and keep them as our focus, we will achieve a mutually beneficial outcome for all involved’.”

This week | What’s new? / Why does it matter? / What’s next? | What else? | Quotable

Why does it matter?

After Aberdeen became abrdn in April, I thought we’d seen the worst rebrand of the year. Dear reader, I was wrong. This clumsy, contrived, contradictory move from Beaufort takes the prize while stampeding over almost every principle of good branding.

① Brands are a manifestation of a company’s values so it’s critical to consider which values you want to convey. And while you might think that client centricity is a noble one, I’d argue it’s trite. Every organisation is client centric - or at least claims to be. A business that isn’t will soon find itself out of business.

② Client centricity is up there with integrity on the list of values that shouldn’t need voicing; your audience rightly takes them for granted. And that leads me to the second reason this feels so wrong. There are certain values that should be demonstrated not claimed. Like a drunk at a party denying they’ve had too much, a brand that shouts about caring for its clients looks like the one that doesn’t.

③ And shouting is exactly what they’re doing. Which is the third thing they’ve got wrong. By painting such a crude, obvious link between the brand and the value they’re trying to communicate, Beaufort insults its audience. There’s no subtlety or cleverness about it. The last straw is how they’ve even capitalised the word. They are literally shouting. You know, JUST IN CASE THOSE OF YOU IN THE CHEAP SEATS COULDN’T HEAR HOW CLIENT CENTRIC THEY ARE!

Finally, there’s a delicious contradiction here that Beaufort apparently failed to notice. True client centricity means always putting yourself in your client’s shoes. YOU Asset Management should actually be MY Asset Management.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? / What’s next? / What else? | Quotable

What’s next?

Take action

Brands take decades to build so rebranding a business is a drastic step and I’d argue it’s very rarely the right answer. So, my first question to anyone thinking of rebranding would be ‘why?’. What problem are you actually trying to solve? There are often better ways to address them.

If rebrand you must, bear these three rules in mind:

Differentiate: Your brand should reflect the values that make you stand out from the crowd. This is why I talk to CEOs about the purpose of their organisation. Why do they exist other than shareholder value? Identify what that is and, more often than not, you’ll have the values that will differentiate your brand.

Respect your audience: Credit your audience with intelligence, celebrate thoughtfulness. Make them feel special for having understood what your brand stands for; make them feel like you’re talking specifically to them.

Show, don’t tell: This is the really important one. Don’t rely on a brand to convey attributes that need to be demonstrated. A strapline is just words unless your entire business lives up to it every day.

Get help

Whether it be as a permanent member of your team or with 'on demand' support, let me know if you need my help.

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If you found this post useful or know someone who would, please like, comment on, or - best of all - share it using the buttons below. It really helps.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? / What else? / Quotable

What else?

Three other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCE

JPMorgan Chase strikes deal to buy UK robo-adviser Nutmeg

④ Early Nutmeg investors are rejoicing but robo-advisers are no closer to profit.

“JPMorgan Chase said it had agreed to buy Nutmeg, which manages customers’ money online rather than relying on the in-person interactions typically associated with wealth management. The company has expanded rapidly since its launch in 2012 to manage £3.5bn in assets for about 140,000 customers. Two people familiar with the matter said the transaction valued Nutmeg at about £700m.”

“A combination of low interest rates, intense competition and expensive regulations means the UK retail banking market has historically been much less profitable than that of the US, but a goal for Chase is to make adequate returns by keeping costs lower than rivals.”

“The JPMorgan deal will provide a windfall for more than 2,000 retail investors who backed Nutmeg in a crowdfunding round in 2019, when it was valued at about £250m. It is set to be the largest return ever to investors on the Crowdcube equity crowdfunding platform.”

TECHNOLOGY

Over half of millennials ‘happy to opt for digital-only banks’

⑤ The future of financial services is digital. Just in case you were in any doubt,yet another survey says so.

“A new poll from financial advisory organisation deVere Group found that 59 per cent of clients that were born between 1980 and 1996, already only ever use digital banking services or are planning to make the switch this year.”

“The poll’s findings are a big deal for old-school banks. Millennials are the fastest-growing cohort of clients and they are becoming the beneficiaries of the greatest transfer of wealth in history.”

“$68 trillion in wealth is expected to be passed down from the baby boomers to their children and other heirs over the next couple of decades.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

Spotify’s Clubhouse competitor Greenroom launches

⑥ Social audio is getting crowded but returning to the office makes ‘live’ a hard sell.

“Spotify’s live audio app, Greenroom, formally launched, marking the company’s first real attempt at creating a social media platform.”

“Every tech company now seems to be interested in social audio. Twitter has launched Spaces, Facebook hosted its first Live Rooms, and other companies, like Slack, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Discord have started building similar products.”

“Spotify might have the best chance of making social audio a real part of its business but getting people to join an app live and spend time in it is difficult.”

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? / Quotable

Quotable

⑦ Wise co-founder Kristo Kaarmann defending his intention to go public through a landmark direct listing rather than a traditional stock market launch:

“It allows us a cheaper and more transparent way to broaden Wise’s ownership.”

Off cuts

The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter:

🏢 Tuesday: PwC to boost headcount by 100,000 over five years

💳 Tuesday: AmEx to roll out hybrid working model

🎧 Tuesday: Apple Podcasts subscriptions launch globally

🍰 Wednesday: BlackRock joins ranks of investors in ex-Barclays chief’s fintech

👩🏼‍💻 Wednesday: Nearly all UK IFAs would never recommend cryptocurrency or meme stock investments

🤑 Thursday: FCA warns on UK crypto use increase despite gaps in understanding but most would-be crypto investors unaware of UK regulator’s warnings

🍇 Friday: Raisin touches down in the US with first partner bank

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This week / What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

This week

Before we begin: In May, we discussed the bedlam at Basecamp caused by an ill-judged internal memo from the CEO. Sadly, as Churchill remarked, those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it: this week, it was Medium’s turn.

Now, read on to learn why:

① Apple’s war on targeted advertising is escalating and will impact all brands.

② Thoughtful, compelling, empathetic communications will shine brighter than ever.

③ Consent, value and rapport are key to getting close to clients and prospects.

④ Wealth management looks like a great business as the rich continue to get richer.

⑤ Clients are putting pressure on all financial services companies to cater to crypto.

⑥ No brand can afford to ignore social media and its unrivalled power to amplify.

⑦ The biggest threat to crypto’s credibility is its laughable ‘bitcoin bro’ proponents.

This week / What’s new? / Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s new?

Tim Cook took to the WWDC 2021 stage on Monday to headline the Apple keynote. And forward-thinking marketers everywhere shuffled awkwardly in their seats as the ramifications of Cupertino’s escalating war on targeted advertising dawned on them. The Verge detailed how Mail Protection Privacy will force the email economy to adapt.

① In short:

“Mail Privacy Protection will limit the amount of data that people who send you emails can collect about you. The new feature helps users prevent senders from knowing when they open an email, and masks their IP address so it can’t be linked to other online activity or used to determine their location.”

“93.5% of all email opens on phones come in Apple Mail on iPhones or iPads. On desktop, Apple Mail on Mac is responsible for 58.4% of all email opens.”

“The numerous iOS 15 features focused on user privacy combine to place more pressure on the digital ad ecosystem. Perhaps most notably, Private Relay will encrypt all traffic leaving a user’s device, making them harder for advertisers to track.”

This week | What’s new? / Why does it matter? / What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

Why does it matter?

Apple’s announcement is just the latest signal that the days of harvesting people’s data and following them around the web without their knowledge are coming to an end. And that - despite what some second-rate marketers might say - is a very good thing.

② As they wean themselves off the plentiful 3rd party data they’ve relied on in the past, marketers have an opportunity to rethink their approach and double-down on building strong relationships with their audience. This is an opportunity for thoughtful, compelling and empathetic communications to shine brighter than ever.

Of course we’ll still track metrics - the traffic to our own sites, for example, and the growth of our mailing lists - but building trust will be even more important. The challenge is how to get close to our audience, how to provide more personalisation, without compromising privacy or appearing creepy.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? / What’s next? / What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s next?

Take action

③ Whereas in the past, your marketing team could rely on personal data provided by third parties, from now on it must build its own trove. That means getting closer than ever to your clients and prospects. Keep three things in mind:

Consent: Clients will generally be happy to share their data as long as it’s a transparent process and they’re getting something valuable in return. So, be clear from the outset about your intent and the nature of the exchange.

Value: Perhaps the most important of the three. Some marketing teams have become so addicted to tracking and prioritising bottom of the funnel metrics that they’ve forgotten about providing great content. What makes content great? There’s a simple litmus test: is it providing value to your readers? If so, it will build trust and affinity for your brand - and, as a bonus, it will be shared more often too.

Rapport: Understanding your audience and communicating with them well is critical. Without tracking data, you’re going to have to get to know your audience in other ways. Asking them questions is an excellent place to start. Reader surveys, for example, can be a great way to build up profiles. You can uncover demographic information like this of course but think bigger: delve into their preoccupations, their pain points, their interests. This will inform the content you deliver to them in the future. As long as you’ve established consent and are offering value, then starting a conversation is a natural next step and your audience will likely be open to it.

Get help

Whether it be as a permanent member of your team or with 'on demand' support, let me know if you need my help.

Share with your network

If you found this post useful or know someone who would, please like, comment on, or - best of all - share it using the buttons below. It really helps.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? / What else? / Quotable | One more thing

What else?

Three other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCE

Global wealth reached record high of $250trn in 2020

④ Wealth management looks like a great business as the rich continue to get richer.

“Global wealth has risen to an all-time high last year. It went up by 8.3% to $250trn (£177trn, €205trn).”

“North America, Asia (excluding Japan) and western Europe will be the leaders in wealth generation, accounting for 87% of new financial wealth growth worldwide between now and 2025.”

“There are three areas of opportunity for wealth managers: individuals with simple investment needs, retirees and the UHNW who currently hold a combined $22trn in investable assets, making up 15% of the world’s total.”

TECHNOLOGY

State Street sets up digital unit to capitalise on crypto craze

⑤ Clients are putting pressure on all financial services companies to cater to crypto.

“State Street, a US custody bank that oversees more than $40tn in assets, is setting up a new digital division.”

“The bank was seeking to keep up with customers who had increased their crypto exposure by 300 per cent in the past two to three months.”

“This follows similar moves in recent months by competitors including Bank of New York Mellon, Northern Trust and Standard Chartered.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

⑥ No brand can afford to ignore social media and its unrivalled power to amplify.

“Social media amplifies new voices, accelerates the rate at which ideas spread, and broadens the scale at which both people and ideas can win influence.”

“Established newspapers and television channels also retain immense influence, even online. CNN is the second-most-visited English-language news website in the world, after the BBC. The New York Times is third.”

“Some 50m people outside America, spread across every country on Earth, read the New York Times online. Of its 5.2m digital subscribers, nearly a fifth are outside America.”

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? / Quotable / One more thing

Quotable

‘Nico ZM’, CEO of BitVolt Mining, in Jemima Kelly’s gloriously snarky report for the FT on the Bitcoin 2021 conference that took place in Miami last weekend:

“Not only do I think bitcoin toxicity is important, I think it’s absolutely necessary, and if you are against bitcoin toxicity, you are against bitcoin. And if you are against bitcoin, you’re against freedom. Period.”

One more thing…

Investment Week carried a sensible opinion piece by Andrew Pitts-Tucker of Apex ESG Ratings & Advisory, busting the top five ESG myths within private equity.

They are:

ESG just a passing fad

ESG is only about climate change and carbon footprints

Only public companies need to report on ESG

We're too small to worry about our ESG impact

Collecting ESG data is too hard

Off cuts

The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter:

🍎 Monday: Apple to introduce A/B testing and in-app events to the App Store

💸 Monday: UBS ramps up ‘Netflix’ of banking to tap into stream of millionaires

🦄 Tuesday: There are now 30+ fintech unicorns in Europe. Who are they?

🤖 Tuesday: Is human 'hybrid' advice set to succeed where the 'robos' failed?

💰 Wednesday: European neobroker Scalable Capital raises $180M+ at a $1.4B valuation

👩🏼‍💻 Wednesday: Facebook says it will expand remote work to all employees

🐦 Thursday: Twitter is bringing Revue newsletter signup buttons to profiles

📊 Thursday: Fintech giant Klarna raises $639M at a $45.6B valuation amid ‘massive momentum’ in the US

📈 Friday: Private capital industry soars beyond $7tn

🇨🇳 Friday: BlackRock wins Chinese approval for mutual fund business

💹 Saturday: Foreign asset managers are eyeing China’s vast pool of savings

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This week / What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

This week

A couple of weeks ago we discussed why ESG is such a powerful driver in financial services. I was interested to read this week that most financial planning clients don’t know what ESG means. That’s a timely reminder to banish acronyms and industry jargon from our communications.

Read on to learn why:

① Digital events can’t replicate the value of physical exhibitions.

② The real reason we love events is the opportunity to connect as human beings.

③ Content from events should be disseminated widely and smartly.

④ A sizeable minority of investors are chasing thrills and cheating on their adviser.

⑤ US-style free trading apps are coming to the UK.

⑥ Crypto enthusiasts are finding ever more inventive ways to spread their gospel.

⑦ Mark Zuckerberg’s naïveté allowed Donald Trump to play him.

This week / What’s new? / Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s new?

On Friday, the FT looked at how conferences are returning to Las Vegas’ convention centre.

① In short:

“Las Vegas removed restrictions on large gatherings on 1 June, and with more than 40 per cent of the US population fully vaccinated, events organisers who have spent the past 14 months struggling with online conferences are feeling confident enough to resume in-person trade shows.”

“Each one will matter to Nevada, which estimates that conventions contribute $11.5bn in a normal year to a state with a gross domestic product of about $178bn, and to its best-known city, where April’s 9 per cent unemployment rate was second only to Los Angeles out of 50 large metropolitan areas.”

“Organisers such as Informa and Emerald moved many of their events online last year to try to keep that business alive, but ‘virtual exhibitions are honestly not yielding the kind of value our customers are looking for’, Hervé Sedky, chief executive of the events group Emerald, admits.”

This week | What’s new? / Why does it matter? / What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

Why does it matter?

I fondly remember my time working at SWIFT, during which I was a member of the team that put on Sibos. We always thought of that event as having three pillars: the conference, the exhibition and the networking. The conference was ‘the content’. And, even though a huge amount of effort went into making it the best it could be - senior speakers, great production values, technical rehearsals and so on - in our hearts, we always knew that the content was really just the excuse delegates used to justify the cost of attending, so they could take part in the exhibition and the networking.

② This FT story matters because it confirms something many of us have perhaps thought but not said: as slick a content delivery channel as digital platforms are, they can’t replicate the real reason we used to love events: meeting face to face, having a drink together, and connecting as human beings.

As conferences start to return to our marketing calendars, the challenge will be how to apply the lessons we have learned during lockdown about online delivery to an in-person event.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? / What’s next? / What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s next?

Take action

When it comes to events, like so many aspects of life post-pandemic, you’ll need to combine the advantages you’ve reaped during lockdown via digital alternatives with the benefits of more traditional ways of doing things.

③ Your marketing team will need to:

Brush up on event management: They may have been resting for the last 12 months but it’s time to flex those experiential muscles again. Marketers will have to apply creativity to making delegates feel welcome, facilitating networking and sharing knowledge. A glass of wine always helps but the best marketers know that events needs careful planning and some innovative thinking if they’re really going to delight and create engagement. Some of the digital tricks we’ve learnt recently can help (build anticipation on social media with announcements, polls and content in the run-up to the event; then consider how to leverage smartphones to encourage debate during the event itself). But focus on the human element. Create welcoming environments, pay attention to visuals, consider your use of music. In short, think more like a restaurant owner.

Stay open to remote audiences: Just because an event may be in-person doesn’t mean it should be closed to delegates who want to attend online. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Continue to offer access to your content digitally for those that want it.

Sweat your content: Once your content is digital, you can slice and dice it for use on a variety of channels. From your own website to social networks, the content of your in-person events should be repurposed to increase its reach and drive new leads. This is a step beyond point number 2. Those conference sessions are a goldmine of insight and knowledge that should be disseminated over the weeks following the event, to amplify your message far beyond the audience of in-person delegates.

Get help

Whether it be as a permanent member of your team or with 'on demand' support, let me know if you need my help.

Share with your network

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This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? / What else? / Quotable | One more thing

What else?

Three other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCE

19% of UK advice clients have a DIY investment account

④ A sizeable minority of investors are chasing thrills and cheating on their adviser.

“Advised clients in the UK are investing in ‘side-hustle’ accounts, alongside their main portfolio through their financial planner.”

“19% of advised clients also hold an account with one of the big DIY investing platforms.”

“9% of investors using a financial adviser also hold some cryptocurrency assets, while 4% said they had a peer-to-peer or crowdfunding platform account.”

TECHNOLOGY

Ex-Wise employees found commission-free trading app Lightyear

⑤ US-style free trading apps are coming to the UK.

“The fintech, founded by ex-Wise duo Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, combines multi-currency accounts and ‘unlimited access to global markets’.”

“Lightyear says its flagship offering will launch with unlimited access to over 1,500 global stocks and ETFs. It promises no trading fees, no account fees and no FX fees up to £3,000 per month.”

“‘I believe retail investing in Europe is still very much the ugly – we’re talking about sneaky fees, less access and complicated products remaining as the status quo,’ says Aamer.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

Coinbase just wants to tell the truth, its own truth and nothing but the truth

⑥ Crypto enthusiasts are finding ever more inventive ways to spread their gospel.

“Coinbase is launching its own ‘fact-checking’ service because, as CEO Brian Armstrong said in the blog post announcement: ‘Every tech company should go direct to their audience, and become a media company.’”

“Cynical types would say that sounds remarkably similar to traditional corporate propaganda, but this is different because it is about decentralising information, remember?”

“Rather than going through biased intermediaries like journalists who are paid in fiat and so must have a vested interest in crushing crypto (or something), a company can get around this by just speak its own truth. And what greater truth is there, after all?”

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? / Quotable / One more thing

Quotable

⑦ Kara Swisher, in a must-read opinion piece for the New York Times on Facebook:

“No one can turn the clock back on what Mr. Zuckerberg has wrought by indulging Mr. Trump, who never met a Facebook regulation he did not desecrate.”

One more thing…

The Reynolds Journalism Institute published this list of six ways to incorporate Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces in your audience strategy.

They are:

Audio as a reporting tool

Interactive conversations

Discussion around events

Instant reaction

A test ground for future audio projects

Make the case for a subscription

Off cuts

The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter:

🐦 Monday: Twitter may start labelling your tweets based on how wrong you are

📈 Tuesday: Revolut will “inevitably” get into asset management, says chair Martin Gilbert

🏦 Wednesday: Deutsche tells US bankers they must be back in office by September 6

👮🏻‍♂️ Thursday: Crypto firms failing to meet AML standards, say FCA

🐦 Friday: Twitter officially launches 'Twitter Blue,' its new subscription service

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This week / What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

This week

I noticed after last week’s ESG-themed issue went out that the UK finance sector is responsible for more carbon emissions than Germany. Ouch. More progress needed.

Back to this week. Read on to learn why:

① No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.

② A story pulls you in, engages you and dramatically increases your retention.

③ Your communications should be tangible and relatable.

④ Not even Goldman Sachs can swim in China’s vast pool of savings alone.

⑤ The Clubhouse model is better suited to trading apps.

⑥ Seth Godin is still right: Content marketing is the only marketing left.

⑦ Young investors feel the odds of taking part and winning are stacked against them.

This week / What’s new? / Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s new?

On Friday, the FT carried a story about the investment community’s topic du jour: inflation. They illustrated it using that most sacred of institutions, the British breakfast.

In short:

“The cost of raw materials that go into making breakfast staples have roared higher since the pandemic began — raising fears that a broad commodity boom could push up global food prices for consumers.”

“The cost of raw ingredients accounts for only part of the overall price paid for products at the supermarket or in restaurants, but substantial cost rises were likely to be passed on to consumers, said analysts.”

“In developing countries, where food is less processed and the portion of disposable income spent on staples tends to be higher, the rise in agricultural commodity prices will be felt much more. It will be most acute for those living in extreme poverty, a group that has swelled by an estimated 90m people during the pandemic, according to the World Bank, rising significantly for the first time in two decades.”

This week | What’s new? / Why does it matter? / What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

Why does it matter?

You might think that an article of detailed analysis of inflationary pressures in the agricultural sector - one that includes a chart comparing rebased futures prices - isn’t an ideal starting point for us to discuss marketing. I’d argue otherwise though because, in fact, that’s the sort of complex topic that a lot of us in the finance sector have to tackle on a daily basis. This article matters because it shows us how to do so in compelling fashion.

① By leading with a picture of a breakfast, something everyone relates to, and using it as a simile for agricultural prices, the FT draws the reader in and vastly increases the chances of its article being read by its intended audience. It knows that Daniel Kahneman, the 2002 Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences, was right when he said:

“No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.”

② This is what far too much marketing in our sector seems to forgo: the audience wants a narrative. As a reader, a story pulls you in, engages you and dramatically increases your retention. It also makes you far more likely to share the content afterwards.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? / What’s next? / What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s next?

Take action

Have a good hard look at your existing marketing. Be critical. Chances are it’s full of acronyms and industry jargon. Most likely, it jumps straight into descriptions of features or technical detail. Can you see the wood for the trees? More importantly, can your audience?

③ Your head of marketing should be making your communications tangible and relatable. There are three things to bear in mind:

Ask ‘So what?’: That question may be the most powerful in marketing. By asking it often enough, you eventually uncover the true benefit of the most sophisticated of product offerings, in order to tell customers the simple story behind often complex solutions.

Paint a picture: This is your hook, the thing that will catch your audience’s eye and make them curious about engaging with your content. If you can, yes, literally draw a picture. As the cliché goes, it’s worth a thousand words. But pictures can be painted with words. Or sounds. Or video. The point is to make your story as vivid as you can, to bring it to life.

Don’t dumb down: Making it real does not mean dumbing it down. The FT article is a characteristically detailed look at a subsection of inflationary forces. It’s intended for those with a deep interest in financial markets. By using a picture and a simile, the FT isn’t short-changing their audience but they are maximising the percentage of that audience that will notice and read the piece.

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This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? / What else? / Quotable | One more thing

What else?

Three other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCE

Goldman wins approval for wealth management deal in China

④ Not even the Sachs of Gold can swim in China’s vast pool of savings alone. Much as they’d love to.

“Goldman Sachs has won initial approval from Chinese regulatory authorities for a wealth management joint venture with ICBC, one of China’s largest banks. It will hold a 51 per cent stake in the venture, while ICBC will own the rest.”

“Foreign asset managers are rushing to capitalise on China’s vast pool of savings as the government liberalises its tightly controlled financial system.”

“Wealth management products in China are typically distributed through the domestic banking network, pushing foreign asset managers into partnerships with local banks.”

TECHNOLOGY

Robinhood competitor Public is launching in-app live audio programming

⑤ The Clubhouse model has arrived in trading apps - where it makes a far more compelling case for itself.

“Public, the trading and social networking app, is the next app to get into live audio. Unlike its competitors, like Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces, however, Public will initially program these chats with moderators it pays, meaning not just anyone can start a conversation.”

“Topics might include coverage of an upcoming IPO, the day’s news, or analysis.”

“Clubhouse and other apps might host chats with randos who claim to understand the stock market and Bitcoin, but [Public] are betting people are more interested in formal live programming that it can guarantee will be well-moderated and from trusted sources.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

Amazon is buying MGM Studios for $8.45bn

⑥ Content (marketing) is the only marketing left, whether you’re selling financial services or pretty much anything else.

“Amazon, the online massive retailer, confirmed [Wednesday] that it will be acquiring the nearly 100-year-old studio for a cool $8.45 billion.”

“As we’ve seen with the launch of studio streaming platforms like Disney+, the deal will also likely result in that content being pulled from competing services, once existing contracts end.”

“The deal is just the latest in a flurry of media consolidation, including Disney/Fox, Viacom/CBS and AT&T/Time Warner. As ever with these massive deals, the acquisition is pending all sorts of regulator scrutiny.”

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? / Quotable / One more thing

Quotable

⑦ Sam, a 29-year-old cryptocurrency enthusiast interviewed on this week’s FT Money Clinic podcast, summarising his strategy for investing the last £2,000 of his savings:

“I’ll either be rich, or wrong.”

One more thing…

The seven deadly sins of the US wealth management industry - and what to do about them - are entertainingly catalogued by John Jennings in this piece for Forbes.

They are:

1. Sloth: Advisers are incentivised to provide the least amount of service possible

2. Lust: Advisers spend most of their time looking for their next client

3. Greed: Most advisers are compensated based on revenue and profitability, making them view clients as profit centres

4. Wrath: Wealth managers introduce needless complexity to justify their existence

5. Pride: Most advisors won’t say “I don’t know”

6. Gluttony: Lack of transparency about fees

7. Envy: The tax drag of investments is treated as secondary or ignored altogether

Off cuts

The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter:

🤑 Monday: Bitcoin is officially a new asset class says Goldman Sachs vs HSBC CEO says Bitcoin not for us

📲 Monday: iOS 14.6 now available with new Apple Podcasts subscriptions

👨🏼‍💼 Wednesday: ‘It’s wild out there’ - crypto firms lure top bankers in price boom

🚇 Wednesday: Luno forced to amend ‘misleading’ UK cryptocurrency adverts

🎧 Wednesday: You can join Twitter’s Clubhouse-like Spaces rooms from a browser starting Wednesday

🤳🏻 Thursday: mmhmm, the video conferencing software, kicks off summer with a bunch of new features

🏦 Thursday: Fintechs continue to chip away at incumbent market share

🐦 Friday: Twitter’s new products may seem ‘chaotic’ - but brands will soon see the strategy

🌿 Friday: Bitcoin mining operation is uncovered during U.K. drug bust

🤑 Saturday: Saxo Bank to enable MENA crypto investors to trade in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin

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This week / What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

This week

Read on to learn why:

① ESG is now a driving force for every financial services business.

② Using ESG to differentiate your brand requires far more commitment.

③ From an ESG perspective, you’ll need to mean it, live it, and spread it.

④ Green stocks are now mainstream and they’re here to stay.

⑤ Fintech exuberance shows no sign of waning.

⑥ Virtual events are permanent and tech providers are ready to help you host them.

⑦ Employers need to offer their staff meaning, and not just money.

This week / What’s new? / Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s new?

Deutsche Bank chief executive Christian Sewing has warned that lenders “risk losing their licence to operate” if they fail to make green finance a priority, the FT reports.

In short:

“Germany’s biggest bank on Thursday laid out plans to increase its financing aimed at environmentally sustainable projects to about €220bn by 2023, two years earlier and 10 per cent higher than its existing targets.”

“Facing pressure from investors and activists, Deutsche Bank for the first time broke down its targets across its businesses. The investment bank will have to account for €105bn of the green business; the private bank will be required to contribute €86bn and the corporate bank €30bn.”

“Deutsche Bank did not lay out sustainability targets for DWS, its asset management business which is listed separately and run as an independent company. DWS last month received a mediocre rating in a sustainability ranking conducted by French environmental lobby group Reclaim Finance.”

This week | What’s new? / Why does it matter? / What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

Why does it matter?

① Whether it be financing more environmentally sustainable projects as Deutsche announced this week, or backing environmentally friendly businesses as most investors - both retail and institutional - are doing (see The Economist report below), there is no doubt that environmental, social and governance criteria are now a - perhaps the - driving force for every financial services business. Clients, shareholders and employees simply demand it.

This is good news for all sorts of reasons that are more important than marketing - not least stewardship of the world we all live in. But does it matter from a marketing perspective? I think we need to ask ourselves whether ESG is still a way we can differentiate our brand. Was James Goldsmith right when he said, “if you see a bandwagon, it’s too late”? I think the answer is yes. And no.

② He’s right in the sense that no one is going to notice, let alone be influenced by, most of the claims that used to pass for ESG. Now more than ever, running a business that mitigates its negative impact on the environment, that takes responsibility for its place in society, that is properly governed, is the least stakeholders expect. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t still ways to use ESG as a marketing differentiator - albeit with more effort and far more commitment.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? / What’s next? / What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s next?

Take action

③ Take it as read then that running your business with ESG factors in mind is essential. To use Sewing’s words, it’s simply your licence to operate. External parties - your clients, your shareholders, and journalists - have a healthy skepticism for companies that look like they’re merely jumping on the ESG bandwagon. So, if you want to use ESG as a way to differentiate your brand, you’re going to have to do more than that. Broadly speaking, you’ll need to:

Mean it. Embed it in your corporate culture. From the top down and back again, your team needs to feel passionately about ESG - in and out of the office. If you decide to promote an ESG-related initiative, ensure there is substance behind it.

Live it: Although you can and should be looking at any way to improve the ESG credentials of your business, one way to live up to them it is to submit yourself to independent certification. B Corp, for example, is the only certification that measures a company’s entire social and environmental performance. From their website:

“The B Impact Assessment evaluates how your company’s operations and business model impact your workers, community, environment, and customers. From your supply chain and input materials to your charitable giving and employee benefits, B Corp Certification proves your business is meeting the highest standards of verified performance.”

Spread it: Enable ESG-friendly action beyond the boundaries of your own business. If you’re an investment firm, avoid stocks that aren’t green. If you’re a bank, commit to financing sustainable projects. Whatever your business, put policies in place that help your employees to be ESG-friendly in and out of the office.

Finally, perhaps most importantly from a marketing prospective, remember to communicate all of this - internally and externally - with humility.

Get help

I’m currently looking for a full-time, in-house role but in the post-Covid age of depleted marketing budgets and remote teams with skills gaps, many organisations need marketing and communications support that’s agile, flexible, and risk free. That’s why I founded WhatsNext Partners.

Whether it be as a permanent member of your team or with 'on demand' support, let me know if you need my help.

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This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? / What else? / Quotable | One more thing

What else?

Three other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCE

A green bubble? We dissect the investment boom

④ Green stocks are now mainstream and they’re here to stay.

“Green stocks are no longer the preserve of niche sustainable funds. Conventional funds have piled in; stocks are also touted on online forums for day traders, such as WallStreetBets. The enthusiasm reflects two trends: many clean-energy firms are now more viable; and retail investing has surged, and punters seem excited about new clean technologies.”

“A few things could sap that exuberance. Inflation is a worry. […] Many green firms’ valuations are based on earnings far into the future. Higher inflation would erode that. And enthusiasm could also wane if some of the more speculative technologies fail. The froth has already attracted short-sellers.”

“Still, many investors are optimistic. Few think that the energy transition will go into reverse. They argue that the prospects for the sector as a whole are promising, even if some firms end up being duds.”

TECHNOLOGY

Fintech billionaires invade The Times Rich List 2021

⑤ Fintech exuberance shows no sign of waning and that’s reflected in increasingly bullish valuations.

“Guillaume Pousaz, CEO and founder of Checkout.com, is now ranked as the 33rd richest person in the UK in 2021, with a fortune of £5.54bn. The entrepreneur wasn’t even ranked on the 2020 list.”

“His riches were super-charged over the last year as Checkout.com sealed two funding rounds, first valuing the business at $5.5bn in June 2020 and then at $15bn in January 2021—sending his equity stake soaring.”

“Pousaz is joined on the list by Revolut CEO and founder Nikolay Storonsky, who’s seen a similar explosion in fortune over the past year, pushing him to become the 165th richest person in the UK, with a fortune of £1bn.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

Zoom Events will try to re-create the in-person conference experience

⑥ Virtual events are a permanent fixture of the marketing landscape and tech providers are queuing up to help you host them.

“Zoom has announced an expanded live events product that’s launching this summer. Zoom Events layers in features that can support larger multiday events and non-video activities like chat.”

“The main way Zoom is focused on improving the experience for larger organizations is by making Zoom Events more friendly to conferences or large group meetings that could be split over multiple sessions.”

“Zoom is also adding access to text chat in places outside of a typical video call. If you show up to an event before the live video actually starts or stick around afterwards, you’ll be able to see who’s in the event lobby, participate in a group chat channel, and exchange contact information.”

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? / Quotable / One more thing

Quotable

⑦ Olivia Fahy of TCC Group, in Investment Week on healthy corporate culture:

“Employers need to offer their staff meaning, and not just money. As investors and customers alike place an increasing weight of importance on ESG, an unhealthy culture can ultimately lead to more than a loss of talent, but a fundamental loss in trust from consumers, as well as potential losses in investment from shareholders who are increasingly looking to invest in firms with good and robust business practices.”

One more thing…

In the post-Covid world, we’re all turning to videos and podcasts to replace in-person interactions. But many marketers aren’t as comfortable as they should be with editing them. Well, Descript is a tool that makes editing audio and video as intuitive as editing a Word document.

(Descript is not a sponsor of this newsletter - sadly - I just love their product.)

Off cuts

The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter:

💰 Tuesday: Insight Partners leads $60M growth round in cross-border payments startup Thunes

📊 Tuesday: Finary wants to create the wealth management dashboard for the next generation

🤖 Tuesday: Goldman Sachs plans UK app launch, robo-adviser for 2022

🇪🇺 Wednesday: Payments FinTech Square launches in Europe

✔️ Thursday: Twitter is letting anyone apply for verification for the first time since 2017

👮🏻‍♂️ Thursday: American Express fined by ICO for 4m unlawful emails

🎟 Friday: Twitter previews Ticketed Spaces, says it’ll take a 20 percent cut of sales

🤑 Saturday: As bitcoin lurches, Wall Street plots its way into cryptoland

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This week / What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

This week

Read on to learn why:

① Most investors younger than 45 don't feel the need to meet their adviser in person.

② Your brand is at stake if your digital channels are not on par with traditional ones.

③ Digital channels should feel bespoke and be infused with empathy.

④ Investors with complex needs demand digital channels.

⑤ Investors with simple needs demand digital channels.

⑥ Microsoft’s CEO regards marketing as one of its top drivers of success.

⑦ Financial services marketing needs to be omni-channel.

This week / What’s new? / Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s new?

Money Marketing reported on Boring Money’s 2021 Advice Report which found that online meetings are now the ‘preferred channel’ for advice.

① In short:

“The report reveals 40% of investors would favour paying a lower fee for digital advice, while 29% said they would prefer face-to-face advice even if it would mean higher fees. Almost half said they were happy to receive advice via video, a 24% increase since 2019.”

“People between the age of 55 and 65 were most likely to stick with face-to-face meetings. In fact, 34% of people aged over 65 said they would rather have a face-to-face meeting even it involves higher cost, while 24% said they are not unhappy with digital advice.”

“Only 13% of younger customers (below 45) felt it is important to meet with an adviser in person.”

This week | What’s new? / Why does it matter? / What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

Why does it matter?

This report matters not because it teaches us something new but - like a lot of the other news items in this week’s briefing - because it confirms a trend in financial services that is now undeniable. Firms of all types are gravitating towards wealth management as a source of profit. In doing so, whether it be at the simpler end of the market where fintech apps are democratising it, or at the other end catering to investors with more complex needs, digital channels have emerged as a vital component.

For all but the simplest of wealth management needs, face to face advice delivered by a human specialist is here to stay but it will be complemented by digital experiences. This is partly because commercial pressures such as a growing appetite for fixed fees mean firms need to increase their efficiency but it’s mostly because clients now insist on it. And don’t make the mistake of thinking that it’s just younger clients who demand digital channels - the data shows that it’s less a matter of age and more about sophistication. The more affluent the client, the more they expect a delightful digital experience in additional to human interaction when needed.

② From a marketing perspective, those digital channels are an integral - if not the only - part of your client’s journey. So, they need be on par in terms of quality, messaging and general experience as all your other client touchpoints. To be blunt: your brand is at stake if they’re not.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? / What’s next? / What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s next?

Take action

③ This topic isn’t new so let me simply remind you of advice I’ve offered in the past.

Your brand’s good standing depends on every client interaction - and those will increasingly be taking place via digital channels. So, whether it be onboarding, advice via video, or reporting - leverage your marketing team to ensure that each one of those interactions is consistent with everything your brand has been until then, that it's easy and feels like it was designed by humans who want to help.

Infuse empathy into your digital channels. Talk about your clients’ problems, not your solutions; attract, don’t broadcast; show, don’t tell; and track behaviour, not hits.

Provide a bespoke experience online by seeking consent from your clients, delivering real value and relying on collaboration between all client-facing teams.

Get help

Whether it be as a permanent member of your team or with 'on demand' support, let me know if you need my help.

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What else?

Three other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCE

Banks see wealth management as a growth engine, but they aren’t very good at it

④ Investors with complex needs demand digital channels plus human advice.

“Banks are still so siloed they struggle to identify wealthy individuals, or if they do have a sense, they have trouble handing the clients over from the commercial banks, or from the private bank to the wealth management arm.”

“If a wealth management firm hasn’t built a strong relationship with the woman, who statistically is likely to outlive her husband, the firm will see the money shift to another firm and another advisor.”

“Firms, especially in banking, are scaling a lot through digital, so advisors can service more clients, or some clients can be served through a shared pool that is more digitally led. Firms and advisors are seeing a growing proportion of clients who want to do some of the work themselves — from onboarding to looking at their transactions.”

TECHNOLOGY

How technology is helping to bring investing to the masses

⑤ Investors with simple needs demand digital channels and plenty of firms provide.

“The past 12 months have seen a massive surge in people investing for the first time with robo-advisers, platforms and digital disruptors all vying for their business.”

“Dozens of new names have sprung up in this market, many of them minnows compared to the traditional players. Even Nutmeg, which claims to be the largest digital wealth manager, has just 100,000 customers; compare that to the 4 billion logins to Lloyds Bank’s digital banking services in 2019.”

“While some investors, especially those with big wallets, still prefer the experience and emotional intelligence of a human adviser, technology is proving it can compete and help widen access to money management whether through investing or saving.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

Cannes Lions names Microsoft its 2021 Creative Marketer of the Year

⑥ Microsoft’s CEO values marketing as one of its top drivers of success.

“The annual honor goes to an advertiser that has consistently produced creative and Lion-winning work over the years. Microsoft has repeatedly impressed at the festival, earning accolades across its suite of products.”

“In 2019, for example, the brand had a particularly standout showing with its “Changing the Game” campaign, created out of McCann New York. The effort centered on the company’s accessible gaming controller and earned both a Grand Prix in Brand Experience and Activation as well as a Titanium Lion, among other honors.”

“CEO Satya Nadella has stated that ‘marketing is one of the top drivers of our success’.”

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? / Quotable / One more thing

Quotable

⑦ Leanne Fremar, chief brand officer, JPMorgan Chase, speaking to Ad Age's Jeanine Poggi during a live interview this week:

“People love the personal relationship [of visiting branches]. But people also love the flexibility, convenience, security, and the deep features and insights that come with our app. So people engage there on things they might not necessarily engage with in a branch. It’s about a multi-pronged approach. Everything has relevance and importance in the mind of certain consumers.”

One more thing…

You’ve likely already seen the Bloomberg profile of Pictet that’s been doing the rounds this week but, just in case you missed it, I couldn’t resist bringing you some highlights.

“In its entire history, only 43 individuals — all men, all white — have risen to the rank of Pictet managing partner, creating a bond more enduring than your typical marriage. From their Geneva perch, they oversee more than 600 billion francs ($662 billion) in assets under management and a level of profitability far beyond larger, publicly-listed peers, often rewarding each of them with more than 20 million francs a year. […]

“Up until a few years ago, the firm was so old-fashioned that managing partners were expected to be addressed as Notre Sieur, a formal French title for sire.”

“Former managing partner Nicolas Pictet once told his employees that retaining a client was more important than making a profit.”

Off cuts

The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter:

🏢 Monday: US and Europe split on bringing bankers back to the office

👨🏻‍💻 Monday: Digital dominates wealth sales for HSBC

🏦 Wednesday: Facebook-backed digital currency project narrows focus to US

🌏 Wednesday: HSBC on track to hire 1,000 wealth managers in Asia before year end

🤑 Wednesday: Tesla stops taking Bitcoin, citing environmental harm

🇭🇰 Thursday: Citi eyes 1,000 wealth hires in Hong Kong over next five years

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This week / What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

This week

Read on to learn why:

① Having an enemy gives your brand purpose.

② Your enemy doesn’t have to be a competitor; it can be the status-quo.

③ The crusty old payments sector remains one of the most contested in finance.

④ WealthTech providers are mimicking their clients and consolidating.

⑤ Brand is more than a name and logo. But it helps to have a decent name and logo.

⑥ The CEO of JPMorgan couldn’t care less that you don’t like commuting.

⑦ Ambitious, boutique London wealth managers have created a Savile Row for wealth.

This week / What’s new? / Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s new?

Signal, the WhatsApp competitor that sells itself on privacy, wrote a blog post this week claiming their ads were blocked by Facebook and exposing how social media companies operate.

In short:

“Companies like Facebook are building technology for your data to sell visibility into people and their lives. The way most of the internet works today endures because it is invisible.”

“We created a multi-variant targeted ad designed to show you the personal data that Facebook collects about you and sells access to. The ad would simply display some of the information collected about the viewer which the advertising platform uses.”

“Being transparent about how ads use people’s data is apparently enough to get banned; in Facebook’s world, the only acceptable usage is to hide what you’re doing from your audience.”

This week | What’s new? / Why does it matter? / What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

Why does it matter?

What was it Picasso said about great artists? Well, with Pablo to defend me, a lot of what I’m about to tell you is stolen from a marketer I admire called Louis Grenier. Louis publishes the only podcast and newsletter dedicated to differentiation; it’s called Everyone Hates Marketers. Signal’s blog post matters because it is a perfect example of one of the tenets of differentiation as taught by Louis: pick a fight, choose an enemy.

① Having an enemy gives you a story to tell, a purpose, it means you have a reason to exist that people can easily understand and it serves as a way to start conversations about what makes you special. In doing so, it also pushes your audience into getting off the metaphorical fence, they have to take a side. And, as any newspaper editor will tell you, conflict creates interest. It will get you noticed.

② To be clear, your enemy doesn’t need to be a competitor. Indeed, I’d argue it’s better to avoid that if you can - you don’t necessarily want to give them free publicity. Your enemy can be the status-quo, it can be an inefficient incumbent system, an outdated technology model. What matters is, by defining your enemy, you’re also defining what you stand for. And people readily relate to that.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? / What’s next? / What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s next?

Take action

Your head of Marketing should lead your positioning effort and, in doing so, it’s her or his responsibility to differentiate you. That’s one of the hardest challenges in marketing - not least in the financial sector which is increasingly commoditised. But differentiate you must.

When thinking about your purpose, I encourage you to define it in terms of what you’re fighting against. What problem, broken system, inefficient incumbents are you delivering salvation from?

The next challenge is how to articulate that in a way that is positive and aspirational for your clients. But that’s a huge topic in itself and one for another newsletter.

Get help

I’m currently looking for a full-time, in-house role but in the post-Covid age of depleted marketing budgets and remote teams with skills gaps, many organisations need marketing and communications support that’s agile, flexible, and risk free. That’s why I founded WhatsNext Partners.

Whether it be as a permanent member of your team or with 'on demand' support, let me know if you need my help.

Share with your network

If you found this post useful or know someone who would, please like, comment on, or share it using the buttons below.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? / What else? / Quotable | One more thing

What else?

Three other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCE

Europe’s largest banks plan joint attack on US payments giants

③ The crusty old payments sector remains one of the most contested in finance.

“More than 30 of Europe’s largest banks and credit card processors are trying to create a payments giant capable of shattering a US-dominated ‘oligopoly’. The idea is to build a European payment champion that can take on PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, Google and Apple.”

“The banks and acquirers behind the initiative include Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, ING, UniCredit and Santander and currently process more than half of all payments in Europe. The project has the backing of the European Commission as well as the euro area’s financial regulators.”

“Card payments in Europe are predominantly processed by US-based companies. Four in five transactions in Europe are handled by Mastercard and Visa, according to EuroCommerce, a lobby group of European retailers. The barriers to entry are high because payments schemes are only attractive for merchants if many customers use them — and vice versa.”

TECHNOLOGY

InvestCloud acquires software firm to ‘bridge adviser-client gap’

④ WealthTech providers are mimicking their clients and consolidating.

“Digital finance firm InvestCloud has acquired American-based cash flow, trust and tax financial planning provider Advicent.”

“Advicent creates financial planning software solutions for financial advice firms through its NaviPlan platform.”

“The deal aims to combine Advicent's software with InvestCloud's digital client and adviser platform in a bid to bridge the adviser-client communication gap.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

Standard Life Aberdeen & Wolff Olins defend mocked Abrdn rebrand

⑤ Brand is more than a name and logo. But it helps to have a decent name and logo.

“Social channels were in a frenzy when Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA) bode farewell to a few vowels to rebrand as ‘Abrdn’. Love it or hate it, the brand film clocked up over 300,000 views, which was a milestone for the financial services brand.”

“SLA wanted a name that would define it as a modern, digitally-enabled brand, mimicking the modern edge of savvy fintechs.”

“The brand is not just the name or the visual identity, it’s everything we say and everything that we do,” says Stephen Whitehead, chief brand, marketing and corporate affairs officer.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? / Quotable / One more thing

Quotable

⑥ Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit this week, on when working life will get back to ‘normal’:

“We want people back at work and my view is some time in September, October, it will look just like it did before. Yes, people don’t like commuting, but so what? I’m about to cancel all my Zoom meetings, I’m done with it.”

One more thing…

⑦ Spear’s Magazine (which….cough cough….I have written for in the past) published a special report this week on London’s new generation of boutique wealth managers.

The boutiques featured are:

Capital Generation Partners

Cerno Capital

Eighteen48 Partners

Lincoln Private Investment Office

Sandaire

Sorbus Partners

Stanhope Capital

Stonehage Fleming

Off cuts

The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter:

👨🏻‍💻 Tuesday: Meet Europe’s fastest growing fintech (it’s not who you think)

📈 Wednesday: CME to permanently close most open outcry trading pits

☎️ Wednesday: HSBC's Voice ID prevents £249 million of attempted fraud

🗞 Wednesday: The New York Times tops 7.8 million subscribers as growth slows

🤑 Wednesday: BNY Mellon leads back-office race to secure US crypto ETF business

🏦 Wednesday: UK neobank Pennyworth unveils iOS app

💳 Wednesday: Chime has agreed to stop using the word ‘bank’ after a California regulator pushed back

💰 Thursday: Canadian fintech Wealthsimple raises record $610m at $4bn valuation

📲 Thursday: Twitter launches larger image previews on mobile, ruins the surprise

🌒 Thursday: Born in the pandemic, Moonfire’s first $60M seed fund will combine remote investing with Big Data

🤑 Thursday: Revolut launches public beta for bitcoin withdrawals

🤑 Friday: Citi weighs launching crypto services after surge in client interest

🕵🏻‍♂️ Saturday: Just 4% of US iPhone users let apps track them after iOS update

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This week / What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

This week

Would you rather listen than read? Hit the play button above. ☝🏻

Regular readers might recall that, a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about why April Fools’ pranks are rarely a good idea for corporate brands. I couldn’t dive into this week’s news without first mentioning a development that makes my case stronger still: Volkswagen’s ill-conceived joke has now landed it in hot water with the SEC.

With that gratuitous self-appreciation out of the way, read on to learn why:

① Ill-conceived internal communications can be fatal.

② How you say something is as important as what you say.

③ Internal communications deserve your highest level of attention.

④ Marketing high-risk investments is about to get much harder.

⑤ Brands will depend on digital advertising more than ever.

⑥ CMOs are not immune to the pressures of the pandemic.

⑦ Private equity is opening up to an ever larger pool of investors.

This week / What’s new? / Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s new?

① On Monday, Basecamp founder and CEO - and hitherto admired company culture pundit and organisational theorist - Jason Fried wrote an internal memo. By Friday, Twitter was awash with Basecamp employees announcing they were resigning in protest and The Verge was reporting that the company had imploded with a third of staff leaving.

In short:

“After a controversial blog post in which CEO Jason Fried outlined Basecamp’s new philosophy that prohibited, among other things, ‘societal and political discussions’ on internal forums, company co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson said the company would offer generous severance packages to anyone who disagreed with the new stance.”

“The original blog post that started the brouhaha at the tiny company with an outsized voice also detailed how Basecamp would do away with ‘paternalistic benefits,’ committees, and would prohibit ‘lingering or dwelling on past decisions.’”

“The initial motivation for the letter stemmed from internal disagreement over a controversial list of ‘funny names’ of Basecamp customers. Several of the names on the list, which resurfaced several times over the years and of which management was well aware, were of Asian or African origin. Employees considered their inclusion inappropriate at best, and racist at worst. Hansson acknowledged the list and tried to move on but employees pressed the issue.”

This week | What’s new? / Why does it matter? / What’s next? | What else? | Quotable | One more thing

Why does it matter?

This story is fascinating for so many reasons: the debate about whether societal and political discussions belong in the workplace; the juxtaposition of staff mutiny with reputations the Basecamp founders had previously enjoyed as champions of liberal and forward-thinking leadership (in a deliciously ironic twist, Fried even wrote one of my favourite management books: It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work); and the conspiracy theories now surfacing that this exodus was exactly what the machiavellian founders intended all along.

I don’t want to comment on any of that - not least because I’m not clear about where I stand on it all myself - but it is worth noting, purely from a marketing perspective, how poorly handled internal communications can lead to such a very public mess.

② Fried’s memo has been praised and criticised in equal measure. It’s certainly not a bad thing to want your team to be able to focus on work rather than be distracted - if not, made to feel uncomfortable - by political discussions. But one thing almost everyone seems to agree on is that - in places at least - the tone is off. There’s an arrogance and a lack of empathy to the memo that prevents some of his very reasonable ideas landing. How you say something is as important as what you say.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? / What’s next? / What else? | Quotable | One more thing

What’s next?

Take action

③ There are three lessons this debacle brings to mind:

Internal communications deserve attention at the highest level: I’ve written before how important it is to have a communications specialist on your senior leadership team. No matter how gifted a communicator you may be, we all benefit from being edited and advised by a specialist.

There is no such thing as internal communications: Fried and Hansson’s memos were written with an external audience in mind but the company’s internal message board wasn’t. Never write a word that you wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing in the public domain because, sure as night follows day, your internal communications will be leaked externally. Related: when speaking to a journalist, there is no such thing as ‘off the record’.

If you encourage your team to speak up, they will. And they won’t stop: Creating a culture of being vocal and active on societal and political issues - for instance, by doing so very publicly yourself - isn’t something you can later switch off without repercussions.

Get help

I’m currently looking for a full-time, in-house role but in the post-Covid age of depleted marketing budgets and remote teams with skills gaps, many organisations need marketing and communications support that’s agile, flexible, and risk free. That’s why I founded WhatsNext Partners.

Whether it be as a permanent member of your team or with 'on demand' support, let me know if you need my help.

Share with your network

If you found this post useful or know someone who would, please like, comment on, or share it using the buttons below.

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? / What else? / Quotable | One more thing

What else?

Three other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCE

FCA sets out proposals to strengthen financial promotion rules for high-risk investments

④ Marketing high-risk investments is about to get harder. And that’s a good thing.

“The Financial Conduct Authority has published proposals to strengthen its financial promotion rules for high-risk investments because there is a growing trend of retail investors choosing to invest in inappropriate high-risk investments that do not meet their savings goals and investment needs.”

“The three areas of focus are the classification of high-risk investments, the segmentation of the high-risk investment market and the responsibilities of firms which approve financial promotions.”

“The FCA’s classification of investments determines the level of marketing restrictions that applies to that investment. It is concerned that despite its existing marketing restrictions, too many consumers are still investing in inappropriate high-risk investments which do not meet their needs.”

TECHNOLOGY

Big Tech’s surging growth stuns Wall Street

⑤ Brands will depend on digital advertising more than ever because we’re all addicted to our screens.

“Big Tech reported a surge in growth and profits, delivering powerful evidence that the digital dependence forced on a large part of the world’s population over the past year could have an enduring effect.”

“The leading digital powers have consolidated their gains from the past 12 months and made themselves an even more indispensable part of work and personal life. Big Tech is poised to lead the way out of recession, as consumer and business activity surges across their digital platforms.”

“Consumers once valued choice, but what they value now is dependability. That has led them to concentrate more of their attention and spending on a handful of familiar, easy-to-use platforms like the iPhone, Google’s search engine and Instagram.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

CMO tenure slips to just 40 months – the lowest average since 2009

⑥ CMOs are not immune to the pressures of the pandemic, while CEOs seem to be.

“The average tenure of a chief marketing officer at 100 of the top US ad spenders fell to 40 months last year, down from 41 in the year before and the lowest average since 2009.”

“There is a growing divergence in tenure duration between chief marketing officers and chief executive officers, with tenure time for the latter reaching an all-time high of 80 months. The findings are particularly striking as historically both roles have broadly tracked each other.”

“63% of respondents promoted internal candidates for open chief marketing officers positions in 2020, rising to 84% among first-time chief marketing officers.”

This week | What’s new? | Why does it matter? | What’s next? | What else? / Quotable / One more thing

Quotable

Martin Bamford, chief executive of marketing agency Bear Content and a fellow of the Personal Finance Society, on Standard Life Aberdeen’s rebranding to Abrdn:

“Up there with the most calamitous corporate rebrands in history. A poorly executed attempt to seek relevance with a digital-first audience.”

One more thing…

⑦ As the Marketing guy, my job is often about getting my colleagues into the press. So, there’s a frisson of excitement when it’s my name on the byline for once. This week, I wrote a piece for Spear’s Magazine about how private equity is opening up to an ever larger pool of investors.

Off cuts

The stories that almost made it into this week’s newsletter:

🚀 Monday: How CMOs can keep marketing organisations agile in changing times

🤑 Monday: JPMorgan to let clients invest in Bitcoin fund for first time

🙀 Monday: A dangerous time to get caught up in the fintech frenzy

🕵🏻‍♂️ Tuesday: WPP creates new data unit amid ongoing privacy crackdown

⁉️ Tuesday: Are fintech’s best days behind it?

👨🏻‍💻 Tuesday: UBS promotes tech boss to top management

📲 Thursday: Revolut’s ‘super app’ gets an update

📰 Thursday: Why every adviser firm needs to think like a media company

🏗 Friday: Rebuilding financial services from the inside

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