INTERVIEW: HSBC UK’s Director for Marketing Strategy, Insight and Effectiveness

James Davies, Director for Marketing Strategy, Insight and Effectiveness at HSBC UK, shares how the bank has created a culture of marketing effectiveness

How would you define the overall marketing strategy at HSBC?

Our strategy is to be open to everyone but very clear and focused on where we have a competitive offering and build fame and market leadership with those target customer groups – for example Premier, Wealth, Commercial Banking and Innovation Banking.

We’ve brought together Customer, Propostions and Marketing into a single department which means that we work in sync to deliver enhancements to core strategic audiences across all aspects of how they experience our brands.

Within the department we’re overhauling our processes and technology too so that our colleagues can operate more efficiently and have a better and more rewarding experience.

When you combine all these things it is a very exciting place to be and that will help us attract the best talent.

Financial services can be a hard area to generate effective marketing in, but HSBC has achieved sustained success in recent years. What do you think underpins the culture of marketing effectiveness at HSBC?

In our advertising (which last year was recognised with an IPA Award and an Effie) we have seen the compounding benefit of consistency which is both visual (big red hexagon) and in our body language (intelligent wit, a distinctive point of view on the world).

Clarity around who we are for, thinking about measurement from the outset, having a well-defined and consistent briefing process (something we introduced last year) all help. We are curious to find out what else can enhance our effectiveness so we’ve just commissioned a study working with Go Ignite, a marketing effectiveness consultancy to really understand and double down on our effectiveness culture.

What metrics do you use for effectiveness in brand marketing?

We look at the full funnel of metrics from brand health through to sales, customer engagement and profitability. I’ve recently brought together Insight and Effectiveness teams into a single Centre of Excellence so that we can understand our total effectiveness and the interrelationship between factors. We also invest a lot of time listening to our customers to understand how our products, journeys, channels are performing as well as at an overall strategic level. Bringing all these data sets together we can make sense of what is having an impact, and encouragingly we are seeing where investments in our customer experience are translating to improved sentiment with our customers.

To achieve brand distinctiveness usually requires taking risk – how do you balance being led by the data with boldness?

By being clear on what makes your brand distinctive. HSBC is known for being international and popular among Mass Affluent customers and businesses of all sizes. first direct is distinctive for its original purpose, pioneering amazing customer service. The risk comes when you try to do something for attention but consumers don’t feel it is authentic to your brand, or feel that it is not credible for your brand to be offering a point of view in that context.

What’s on the marketing agenda with the push into wealth and premier?

This is all about focusing on our strengths. Mass Affluent customers have a strong preference towards HSBC and with the relaunch of our Premier proposition we intend to grow that preference and encourage more customers to move to HSBC. We researched extensively what was important to this group of customers and enhanced the proposition to meet those needs, HSBC Premier customers know get a range of valuable benefits across four pillars: Wealth, Health, Travel and International.

In Wealth we have an ambition to be a top 5 provider and we believe that accessing global investment opportunities provides real value to UK investors whether it is to invest in higher growth markets or ensure risk diversification. We service the entire Wealth continuum so whether you’re investing £10 a month via the app or hundreds of millions through our Private Bank you can access the investments and expertise to support your specific goals.

You spent two years as head of marketing and brand at first direct. How do you think expectations around customer experience have changed since first direct was founded, especially with the advent of digital?

First Direct was the original challenger, revolutionising the way customers could access banking. Its challenger status earned it kudos and it has a very loyal customer base which first direct take great care to look after.

First Direct’s strength is in its customer service which is delivered through human channels. You phone them up and a real person picks up the phone in seconds, no IVR. The Chat service in the app has one of the highest NPS scores in the market.

There are apps out there with more features than first direct, that is something we recognise, but if you want to speak to a friendly human who is empowered to help you out then you still can’t beat first direct.