Barclays, Natwest and the banking confidence crisis – PR disaster or PR opportunity?

I am going to start this column with a quote: “We need to recognise that you’ve got to solve it from the top down. If the leaders have the collective will to recognise that they have a reputational problem to solve, then its more likely to produce the right answer” That was Marcus Agius the then Chairman of Barclays Bank speaking just last October.

Consumer confidence in the banking sector is rock bottom. NatWest’s recent IT meltdown was followed quickly by Barclays £290m fine for fixing the libor rates leading its chairman and CEO to go. Barclays YouGov Brand Index score, a survey which measures the average of how customers rate the brand in terms of impression, quality, value and reputation slumped from -0.8 to -24.2 the day after the fine. Clearly it and other banks have a lot of work to do to repair their collective reputations in the eyes of the general consumer. The question of how to do this is probably high on the lips of the senior management team and especially the marketing heads. So for a professional opinion I asked two leading local PR agencies for their view.

Rachael Paddick is from Jungle PR and is Chair of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in East Anglia. Rachael comments:

“Barclays has already bolstered its PR resource (why wait for crisis point before taking the influential power of communications seriously?) and the first job will be to refocus its communications strategy. Serious questions need to be answered - were internal communications to blame? What sort of organisation does it want to be?”

“The bank needs to engage with its customers on an honest and human level; after all, ‘sorry, we’re working on it’ is better than ‘no comment’. Values, ethics and codes of conduct need to be scrutinised, adhered to and then reflected across all communications. Restoring faith and showing a commitment to positive, ongoing change is the key.  And on the upside? If handled correctly this could be an opportunity for Barclays to improve perceptions of the banking industry as a whole, not just for itself.”

Liz Cooper, Head of PR at OneAgency in Norwich agreed adding:

“First and foremost, we’d be advising Barclays to put a revised crisis comms plan in place that considers all the mistakes made. Research into their reputation with their audiences will dictate messaging and tone going forward, both completely misread by the bank first time round.”

“Particular attention should be paid to timings. In a social world, which saw the news in 49 percent of twitter feeds by lunchtime on the day the news leaked, prevarication is not an option. You can’t be too proud to learn from your mistakes and an improved comms plan will provide the basis for better PR – for when a similar situation arises.” 

Public relations is often an undervalued channel, like many other undervalued marketing disciplines such as market research, with many dismissing it as simply writing the odd press release and hoping for a few column inches.  PR expertise though will now be at the forefront of the banks attempts to re-gain consumer confidence. Unfortunately it often takes a crisis for many business owners to recognise the value of such companies and their work.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant - follow him on Twitter @timyoungman   

Socks - check, pants - check, mortgage - check – The M&S bank, a brand extension too far?

You have picked up your new pants, found a nice pair of stripy socks and might even have bought a treat from the food section. Next would be paying your mortgage then. Yes, this is the new world for M&S customers after its announcement that it is launching 50 in-store banking branches over the next two years. So why is M&S, the bastion of the British high street, launching a bank? Well it’s a simple case of brand extension.

A brand extension is as it sounds, when a brand famous for one thing extends into another area, either product or service, to grow. M&S are another in a long list of companies and brands to do this. I can still remember when supermarkets used to just sell food, but my children will grow up thinking that Tesco’s has always sold toys, and spades and televisions and books. They will think nothing of a Tesco branded mobile phone service or credit card.

Brand extensions can be a good way to grow your business. If you are well known for one thing you may be able to take your brand equity, whatever you are known for to your customer base, and apply that to a new market and even take existing customers on that journey with you. Virgin started selling records and then took its reputation for customer service and innovation and moved into everything from air travel to banking. This though does not always work. You may remember Virgin Cola but you will struggle to buy a bottle today.

Brand extensions work best if they are linked to your current product or service. Also if you can take existing customers with you and use your brand equity in that market. Finally it helps if the competition in the market you are looking at are not dominant as Virgin found when they thought it was a good idea to try and take on Coca Cola and Pepsi.

In the case of M&S they know that their competitors are not dominant. A recent YouGov survey showed that 63% of consumers say that they cannot trust any bank and 57% not trusting any building society. M&S also has massive trust and associations with quality and service. It also has a loyal customer base of around 21 million shoppers. They also already have financial products from M&S money (owned by HSBC) such as savings, credit cards and loans but no physical presence for that brand.  So re-branding M&S Money to M&S Bank and extending to current accounts and mortgages with in-store physical counters is not that much of a stretch.

The new offering will be owned by HSBC but will operate as a profit share venture. No doubt both parties will hope that more of M&S loyal customers will use its new service and existing M&S money customers will take other products in its portfolio.  Whatever the result they certainly have followed the golden rules of brand extensions and with the current distrust of the banking system, have a chance of taking a share of a £10 billion market.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow him on twitter @timyoungman

Email marketing - is it unfairly unfashionable?

Fashionable is an interesting word. You can have fashionable clothes, fashionable hair, even fashionable food. Anything can be fashionable and if certain influencers or the media tell us so we believe it. By definition therefore when something becomes fashionable something else becomes unfashionable. So for every pair of skinny jeans there is a pair with an elasticated waistband. For every tight haircut there is a mullet and for every locally sourced, organic gastro pub meal there is boil in the bag curry.

This pace of what is shiny and new and what is old and dusty is far worse in the digital world driven by the pace of technology. So your iPad1 is already old and useless compared with the new iPad. Likewise if you compare the column inches and web pages dedicated to the best practice for social media you would think that there is no other way to interact with consumers. In fact as a commentator and professional it often feels that unless you spend your time banging on about the latest trend you too will be viewed as unfashionable and out of date.

So I am going to put my mullet on and stand up for email, a marketing tool that many now view as run of the mill. 10 years ago email marketing was the sexy young thing in a marketeers toolbox. It was shrouded in mystery and some people made a lot of money telling others how to do it. Over time however new things arrive and email marketing moved from being shiny to becoming a stalwart of peoples marketing activities simply because done well it delivers.

A recent report from the Direct Marketing Association showed that half of the respondents stated that email marketing was driving 30% or more of their total revenues. So almost a third of revenues from an activity that is often neglected, and in some firms given to a junior while others try to fathom out how to get a return from their new Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Those companies, from large corporates to local restaurants that do get it, realise the benefits. They know that they can prove the return on investment in both time and money. They understand that compared to other channels it is cheap and you can truly build brand loyalty through regular contact if done well, something that all Social Media tries to do. Compared with Social Media it is also highly targeted, you can personalise your emails to named individuals and send highly tailored messages. Anything from solutions or products you know interest them such as a Friday night offer for a deal on a curry to announcing a new product line.

There are lots of shiny new toys out there and there are good reasons why you should pick them up and play with them to see how they work. However you also shouldn’t be afraid to put on your mullet and not forget those older toys that deliver results time and time again and give them the time, effort and attention they deserve and enjoy the returns that will give you.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow him on Twitter @timyoungman

What’s in a name? The re-brand dilemma - Yellow Pages, Yell.com or Hibu?

Nothing causes more comment and amusement than when a business decides to re-brand itself. The announcement by Yellow Pages that it is re-branding all its digital products worldwide to Hibu has achieved just that.

Now there is a clear difference between re-branding and re-positioning. Re-positioning is when a business tries to change what it, or its brands, stands for in the minds of its customers. Re-branding though is a change of position and also identity and is one of the most expensive and difficult things a business can do. Local examples of this are the re-branding of Norwich Union to Aviva versus the re-positioning of Bernard Matthews.

When Norwich Union wanted brand uniformity across the world it re-branded its entire business to Aviva. The universal use of “Aviva”, recognised now as a global group with a common brand, is testament to what Aviva achieved and the tactics it used to get there.

Bernard Matthews is still on the long journey of re-positioning themselves following a range of PR nightmares starting with Jamie Oliver’s Turkey Twizzler outburst in 2005,. Its actions over the years, changing to Bernard Matthews Farms and signing Marco Pierre White show that this is possible but can take time to change public perception back to being known for product quality and a healthier image.

Brands certainly should evolve over time or risk being overtaken by competition. Good brand managers know this but also understand that they are just custodians of brands that often existed before them and will do after them, our newspapers brands have taught me that.

For every Aviva though, with good reasons to take the difficult route, there are many more examples like the Royal Mail. It lasted 16 months being called Consignia before being forced to change back to the old name wasting millions in the process.

Yellow Pages is a big business, big enough to post an annual loss of £1.4billion with debts of £2.2billion. It is not just the yellow book but an international business who grew through acquisition (the massive loss caused by a £1.59 billion write down of businesses in the UK, US, Spain, China and Peru).

The change in Yell’s fortunes has, in the main, been caused by the impact of the internet. It is no longer the go-to place for directory listings and despite extensive investment in its online offerings, competition has hit it hard. It has tried to diversify, for example it now builds websites for its advertisers, building 337,000 for its clients worldwide in 2011 alone, but clearly this is not enough.

So to break with the past and try to revitalise its digital offerings, Yell is re-branding all its digital products across all countries, including yell.com in the UK, to “Hibu”, pronounced high boo. Products that have spent money and effort building up brand reputations and awareness are going to be changed. Of course having one brand across all your international markets and the consistency and savings it can bring can make sense, see Aviva for that.

But this is a very treacherous and difficult road to take with few making a successful change. Whether this works, only time will tell, something Yell is short on. Certainly this smacks of last throw of the dice rather than thought out strategy in good times. I hope they learn lessons from those who have done it well as well as those who now regret.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant - follow on twitter @timyoungman

Things to consider when using Facebook and Twitter to build your business brand

Following the recent coverage about the dangers of social media I wanted to write this column about its use in business. Say ‘social media’ and most people also only think of the two behemoths; Facebook and Twitter. This is a shame, as it actually covers a wide range of activities including that unfashionable and highly underrated thing, blogging, however I will concentrate on the first two.

This week I watched an hour long BBC documentary on Facebook, including an interview with someone setting up Facebook pages for local businesses.  Interestingly the first thing she said, I agreed with, which was that being on social media means you can listen to what people are saying about your business. Unfortunately the current hype can mean that people think they are missing out on something that will drive massive profits for their business. This has not been proven yet, but clever businesses with the right product or service offering do use social media not just to listen, but to work with the people who pay the wages, their customers, to find out what they want and develop products and services around that. A recent example of this is the Citroen C1 car, due to go into production in July, which was developed and designed in part by users accessing a specially designed app on Citroen’s Facebook page.

Social media - and the clue is in the title - taps into the basic human need to share and engage. Whether it is photos, what people are doing or what they think about a brand or product. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating office said in February “People don’t expect to be talked at anymore they want to be a full part of the conversation”. So let’s go back to the lady selling Facebook pages to local businesses. How many of those businesses are taking her up based on hype rather than careful business decision. How many have thought about RETURN ON INVESTMENT (caps for a reason) and how they will link social media activity to the rest of their brand building and tactical marketing activities.   

I am a massive advocate of social media and the benefits it can bring to businesses when used correctly, but I am the first to say it might not be for everyone. You cannot just create a page and update once a month and think that’s it. Likewise spending all your time and effort on social media and neglecting more traditional forms of marketing is equally wrong. It will not sell a product like a TV, a print or radio ad. It also takes time and effort to do it properly. Done badly with little engagement does more harm than good.

So always first consider your objectives, whatever they are, from product sales, brand building or people through the door. Then look at all the ways to do this and choose those that deliver the best return for the little time and reducing budgets we all have. Facebook and Twitter are modern marketing tools and if you treat them as such, as just another part of the marketing mix, they may become a valuable part of your activities or one that is held until you can do it properly.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow him @timyoungman

Data is not just for geeks......seriously

Hello dear readers. You may have noticed that I have recently been missing from the esteemed pages of the Eastern Daily Press. It is because for the last three months I have been ensconced in the editorial departments looking at the web versions of our excellent Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire newspapers. Some of you, I hope, have noticed the changes to the EDP24 and others from the design of the sites to more social engagement to new content sections delivered from new ways of working. Certainly the record growth we have seen seems to back this up.

Driving all this activity was a very simple question, “Who are our customers and what do they want?” Unfortunately the reason many businesses don’t have the level of customer understanding they really should is because to do so means that you have to crunch that scary stuff; data.

Before the Internet, customer data only really came from market research. You might think that market research is just some lady who stops you in the street and asks you if you eat Weetabix but it’s a science in its own right. The internet though was created by geeks so by definition came with a bunch of data. Luckily another bunch of geeks came along to make it easy to understand the data and the art of analytics was born.

From my laptop I can see how many people are looking at any Archant site right now, at what and for how long. By adding another layer of behavioural technology we can analyse the type of content people are reading and deliver similar articles to them. You might think that’s all big brother but ecommerce sites have been doing this for a long time. How do you think when you look at a products on sites like Argos or Amazon it shows you “Other customers also looked at….”

If you have embraced social media you may have started just by listening to what people said about you. Then, over time, graduated to using it as a tool to work with your customers to develop new products and services. You may have a Facebook page and through Facebook Insights know a bit about the people who “like” you and what they do on your page. How many of you though know that now Facebook is selling ads, through its ad booking software, you can see for example how many people on Facebook are cat owners of a certain age live in Norwich. You might not want to buy an ad but a pet shop owner could use it to get an idea of potential market size.   

Like everything in life, understanding all this data and the products that can help you do so range from the very simple to the very complicated and from free to very expensive. However in the current economic climate understanding who your customers are and what they want is more important than ever. So for those of you trying to use the internet to grow your businesses spend some time to understand how your customers are using your sites the lessons you learn may surprise you and will definitely help you.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing at Archant - follow him @timyoungman

Winter Hibernation

Hello anyone reading this. If you are wondering why there have not been any posts since November it is because  I have been busy on secondment to one of Archant newspaper divisions looking at improving the websites, how we get news online and the structure of the newsrooms to deliver this.

However i will be back creating columns for the EDP www.edp24.co.uk and also the Ipswich Star www.ipswichstar.co.uk so this blog will be updated again come spring.

I am describing this a winter hibernation but my early potatoes are chitting and when they go in this blog will continue to run again.

In the meantime follow me on Twitter @timyoungman for lots of cool things

tim