Reversing declining fortunes in a declining industry

This one takes a bit of explaining I'm afraid as the audience is very very niche. Please stick with it though, it's a really interesting project.

Brief  Encourage marketers at investment banks to place ads in Euromoney Magazine again.

Following the banking crisis, bank-marketing budgets significantly declined. For a trade title like Euromoney magazine this meant declining revenues. The impact of this was further exaggerated by many bank-marketing professionals believing that smaller budgets needed to be tightly focused on clients and prospects and not “wasted” on trade communications that could be dismissed as merely talking to competitors. In the past senior bankers familiar with the influence of Euromoney had driven purchase decisions but now marketing was acting as a block preferring to focus spend in other areas rather than “merely talking to the industry”. Euromoney as the “voice of the industry “ needed to reverse this trend.

Insight  Away from finance, McKinsey had produced research on the importance for businesses of maintaining reputation within their industry. This was especially the case within institutional finance. Independent research was commissioned to test this hypothesis. The study by BrandGenetics revealed the impact of rival advocacy on net promoter score – a form of measurement marketing professionals would understand. It showed that rival advocacy had a +14 impact on NPS. (Bain and Co. associate a 12-point increase in NPS with a doubling of growth.) 

This is a powerful reason to talk to the industry, to do business with Euromoney and a convincing counter to any naysayers. We now needed to communicat this message with very limited budget.

Solution  The campaign introduced the concept of Rival Advocacy. It showed the impact of industry perceptions on reputation and competitive advantage/differentiation. The technique was to use humorous examples of what people say about their competitors behind their back and contrasting what is said with what is really meant. The situations and language were familiar to the target audience and indeed most would be able to fill in relevant company names which were blanked out partly for obvious compliance reasons but also to let the target engage more actively by filling in the blanks for themselves. It resonated with the real wit and sarcasm present in the market which financial marketing has never got close to.

Euromoney use illustration on their front covers so this style was used and animated. Investment banking marcoms are excruciatingly safe and vanilla so this wit and visual style made a big impact. The campaign used a combination of events, owned media and social influencer outreach to make sure the right people heard the message in the right places.

Result When the first film was shown at the ‘Euromoney Annual Awards for Excellence’ dinner the effect was instant. Not only was the audience entertained sufficiently to request a second showing of the film but every Euromoney sales person present easily exceeded their target for follow up meetings. To date, the films have been viewed by over 50,000 senior bankers and professional marketers. Leaders of the finance industry around the world are actively engaging with Euromoney to find new ways to leverage the power of rival advocacy. In difficult markets, revenues have significantly increased.