Raj Kumar, Brand Governance Director at Aviva | Alun Williams, Assistant Marketing Director at NS&I | Alex Hammond, Managing Director at Also Communications | Sasha Dabliz, Marketing Consultant
Raj is Group Reputation and Brand Governance Director at Aviva. He is an explorer, optimist, an animal lover, a vegetarian, a coffee drinker, a wine drinker, a believer in diversity, and a dreamer.
What is your career history? My career started in Asia, where I worked in telecoms for Siemens AG. I then moved to Germany followed by the UK to work for great brands like Experian and Aviva. Whether it be tech or financial services, the fundamentals of marketing do not change. Keep your eye on the customer, look for incisive insight and importantly have commercial nous.
Why marketing? I believe that marketing is the beating heart of any customer-centric organisation. Marketers bring an understanding of customer, an optimism, a lateral thinking growth mind-set and the energy to grow a business. Marketers are natural story tellers with the ability to invigorate audiences both internally and externally.
What excites you about the future of Financial Services? Financial services companies have immense influence and power to create good for our society. From human rights, and better working conditions to improving diversity and encouraging innovation, financial services have been investing and voting on boards to ensure better outcomes.
What worries you about the future of Financial Services? The complexity of the industry and how difficult people find it to deal with financial services companies. We have not helped ourselves and regulation is not an excuse. We must continue to build trust in financial services, trust of character (that we will do the right thing) and trust of competence (doing things right). As an industry our service levels are not there yet.
What’s the best advice you have ever received? My father gave me a placard that read, “never let school interfere with your education”. I have never forgotten that. Experience is the best teacher. Get your hands dirty and practice what you learn, it’s the only way to hone your skills.
What advice would you give a marketer starting out today? Be a profit centre, know the customer, know the business makes money, understand pricing before you create campaigns to acquire customers.
What lessons could financial marketers learn from other sectors? Make it easy for the customer and build a relevant ongoing relationship with them. Make sure the customer experience is seamless and brand touch-points are relevant.
Alex is Managing Director at Also Communications, which is a specialist PR, communications and content business.
What is your career history? I started Also Communications in January 2018 following 17 years of working in the mortgage industry across a range of roles. I actually started my career as a travel journalist before taking a job writing for Your Mortgage, Mortgage Edge and Your Money in 2001 and then joining Mortgage Solutions as Features Editor in 2004. What excites you about the future of Financial Services? I’m excited by the level of freedom that digital developments and product innovation can give people. Look at how other industries have been disrupted – with Airbnb and Uber being the two examples that everyone cites. One gives people greater freedom to stay anywhere in the world and the other offers the freedom to travel more easily. Financial Services has the power to give people greater freedom, and I think that’s exciting.
What worries you about the future of Financial Services? We are still not doing enough to improve levels of financial literacy in this country. My concern is that the importance of professional financial advice is becoming devalued because of the accessibility of information, but many people do not have the correct tools and knowledge to choose the most suitable products for their circumstances. It’s important that people are made aware of the potential cost of making the wrong financial decisions.
What’s the best advice you have ever received? I once read that a student asked a wealthy entrepreneur the secret of his success in exchange for $100. The entrepreneur wrote down his secret, which was: “Every day, make a list of what you want to achieve and complete what’s on that list”. The student read the advice and happily paid his money in return.
What advice would you give a marketer starting out today? Be a sponge and never stop learning. Try alternative approaches to doing things and be open to different views and opinions. Not only will this make you better at your job, it also makes life a load more interesting.
What lessons could financial marketers learn from other sectors? I think we still have some way to go to consistently produce content that people really engage with. Some businesses do it well, and there are some particularly good examples of content marketing from the US, but I think there’s still opportunity for a business to take the mantle of the Red Bull for financial services.
Alun is Assistant Marketing Director at NS&I and is responsible for marketing communications and intermediary relationships. Outside of work he is a frustrated sea kayaker and yachtsman, as work and the rest of life tends to get in the way.
What is your career history? I've worked in retail financial services for 32 years (I started very young) including as a financial adviser, executor, stockbroker, project manager and a marketer. I’ve done large retail PLC (Barclays), mutual (Coventry Building Society), public sector and a host of start-ups including Islamic banking and insurance, prepaid cards and corporate governance in the UK and the Middle East.
Why marketing? I’ve always seen things through the lens of the customer and in my early days this made me somewhat opinionated and passionate about changing things to improve the customer proposition. Strategic marketing (covering the full marketing mix) is where I can best effect customer-centric change.
What excites you about the future of Financial Services? The potential for, and of, simplification. Simplicity is a competitive advantage and I’ve been championing this for years. Too much choice (not to mention complexity) can lead to both confusion and paralysis. All consumers want are solutions to their needs (in our market a primary one being ‘peace of mind’) and to get on with their lives. That is what we should be working on, not adding more choice and complexity. At their core most financial services products are, or can be, commoditised and the opportunity lies in developing other aspects of the proposition in particular the customer journey and service experience.
What worries you about the future of Financial Services? The continued proliferation of overly complicated products, ineffective change programmes, absence of bold and confident decisions that will make a difference for customers, and a lack of focus on what consumers are looking to enable or solve.
What’s the best advice you have ever received? “If you’re not feeling slightly uncomfortable, or slightly out of control, then you’re not empowering your team enough”.
What advice would you give a marketer starting out today? For anyone starting out I would say focus on clear outcomes and proving the benefit and worth of the investment. Always be on the charm offensive to ensure that others realise just how important marketing is for the sustainability of their organisation.
Sasha is a marketing consultant with a background in wealth management, including Cazenove Capital Management and Brewin Dolphin. She’s old enough to remember bromides and chromalins, but hopefully young enough to believe that technology will change almost everything we do.
What is your career history? After graduating form Warwick, I worked in design agencies, then moved into financial advertising. From there I joined Killik & Co then went freelance whilst having a family. In 2010 I joined Brewin Dolphin then Cazenove, Canaccord Genuity, Lloyds Private Banking and Rothschild. I’m now back to consulting and enjoying working with some fabulous businesses.
Why marketing? I studied Sociology so with an understanding of how people are influenced by the world around them and how trends in our world can be so powerful, the world of marketing seemed a good place to start.
What excites you about the future of Financial Services? Nothing will stay the same over the next 20 years – it shouldn’t really. But some human traits and trends will not evolve with technology and it’s how we ensure we remain relevant and interesting to clients using (or despite) all the tech at our disposal is the challenge.
What worries you about the future of Financial Services? It’ll take a while yet for the pale, male and stale generation to get washed through the system – but we have more exciting fresh minds, with open attitudes to change joining the senior ranks now, and we have the technology wind in our sails. Short term, obviously Brexit is a mess and it will feel like the brakes are on – but we'll grow out of it. We have to. What advice would you give a marketer starting out today? Say yes to (almost) everything. You will learn and getting exposure at the beginning is invaluable. I would also say – get out there – go networking – find interesting people and talk to them. So many times I have asked advice from people who know way more than me – most of the time people want to help. Your network says a lot about who you are.
If you could have any mentor, who would it be? I have her already – my mother. Boring, but true. She is a true inspiration.
What’s the key marketing skill you will be developing over the next few years? I’m fascinated how our worlds are becoming connected – voice search and the internet of things is going to dramatically change the way we plan and execute marketing. Writing copy for voice search, for example, will be very different to traditional SEO. Staying on top of these innovations is a challenge to us all.